


A Fletcher's Hands

by Goethicite



Category: Bourne Legacy (2012), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Abuse, Crossover, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Homophobic Language, Jumping on the Bandwagon, M/M, Medical Procedures, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mindfuck, Miscarriage, Moral Ambiguity, Sexism, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 04:57:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 70
Words: 164,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goethicite/pseuds/Goethicite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The transformation from Kenneth to Aaron to Clint is not smooth.  It's a crucible, and the final cast is far different than the first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Last Breath and the First Steps

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm jumping on the Clint Barton was Aaron Cross bandwagon feet first. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of the circus boy, but I never liked him. Renner's Hawkeye did something for me that the ink and paper Hawkeye only did a few times. He made me gut-deep want to shake his hand. This is a non-linear narrative, because it's the only way to tell the story of a man-made man. Also, I could use a cheerleader/beta/support buddy for this fic (and a few others). If you're interested feel free to e-mail me at goethicite (at) gmail (dot) com, and we can get to talkin'.

When Nick Fury didn't let him bury Barney, Aaron took a gun from the armory and waited for the Director of SHIELD in his office. Fury didn't look surprised when he saw the barrel leveled at his face. "What are you going to do with that, Cross?" he demanded. "Shoot me? I'm not the one who killed Barton."

Aaron Cross didn't choke, because he vomited up everything he'd eaten since he walked up and shot his lover and partner in the heart. "You didn't give me a way out either. This wasn't in our fucking contract."

"Neither was you sleeping with my best agent," Fury pointed out in a growl, sitting down in the office chair behind the stupidly large, steel desk. "It wasn't just you he betrayed. Barney Barton was the best damn agent to come through SHIELD since Director Carter's time. If he hadn't gone bad, he would've ended up in this chair some day."

It was a good thing the Director didn't do conciliatory. Aaron hardly felt like being soothed. "I want Marta back," he demanded without lowering the Glock 17 that sat so easily in his hand. "I played your game. I followed orders, and I killed the people you wanted dead. You're the one who assigned Barney to me. You're the one who told him by whatever means necessary. This is not my mess. I want out."

"If I let the two of you go, you loose SHIELD protection. Do you really think you can run from Byer alone? You've got no money, no friends, and you're dragging a civilian behind you like a hundred and ten pound deadweight." Fury leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head as he observed the other man. "I'd give you six months before you're too tired and have to rest. Another few days until Byer takes you. Then, he'll make a deal with you for Marta's life that'll make my offer look damn generous."

The worst part of it, the part that made Aaron want to strangle Fury with his bare hands, was that he wasn't wrong. "Fine, just let me go back to Marta, and I'll be your fucking lapdog until somebody does the world a favor and puts a bullet between my eyes." It was a weak attempt at a bargain, and Fury knew it. No on in their right mind would give Doctor Marta Shearing back her favorite science experiment. Not with how effectively she'd used him to escape one of the more dangerous shadows of the US government the first time around. Aaron Cross was just too volatile to have his leash in the hands of a civilian scientist with questionable ethics.

That was why Fury had made Barney Barton Aaron's handler in the first place. Though Aaron was fairly sure Fury's orders had been closer to make friends and secure the asset's loyalty than seduce him, make him love you, and then sell his skills on the side to pay off your drunken excuse for a father's hospital bills. Aaron knew he was a easy mark, but how easy had been made painfully clear by Barney's manipulation.

Fury couldn't have been overly surprised by the turn of events. He was the one who'd made Aaron and Marta's complete estrangement, no contact, nothing more than second hand information for the duration of their employment with SHIELD, one of the main provisions of Aaron's contact. Aaron Cross had gone from one toxic love affair with a superior officer to, within six months, another deeply codependent relationship with the woman who'd used him as a lab rat remorselessly. Fury waited until Aaron lowered the weapon. Without orders, the psuedo-agent slumped into the at ease position pointing his weapon carefully at the floor.

"You weren't to designed to carry-on without a purpose, Aaron," Fury sighed, slumping back into his chair and peaking his fingers. "You’re designed to do a job. You're a human smart bomb, intelligent but still just a weapon. And a weapon's no good without someone aiming it. That's how you got caught the first time. You made a clean getaway with your girl, but you couldn't live a life of nothing but doing nothing."

Aaron's posture didn't change. Byer had trained him too well to be obviously reactive in professional situations. Still, the press of his mouth drooped just a little. "Give me the gun, soldier." Fury held out his hand from the pistol. When Aaron handed it over, he slipped it into his desk drawer. "Barton's little stunt left you too open. We're giving you a new identity. The scientists in medical lab three are standing by to help you with the transition from Aaron Cross."

"Is this punishment, sir?" the man who was no longer officially Aaron Cross asked quietly. Fury didn't bother answering the obvious.

"Two days of solitary to recover. By then, your new handler will be here. There'll be a mission after that," Fury told him instead.

The man shuffled his feet. It was such an unusual action for him that Fury paused in his dismissal. "Can I keep something, sir? They made the treatments better. I'm gonna lose more than last time. I killed Barney for you. You owe me something for that."

Fury frowned, looking carefully at the split in the other man's bottom lip. "What do you want to be when your grow up, Agent?" he asked wryly.

"A real boy," the man replied, voice dry, "but since that's not going to happen. I want to be a real agent, not your pet killer. I'll kill in the line of duty, but I want to do the job the right way, my way. I guess your not wrong, Director." Cool, pale eyes looked at Fury's single good one with recognition the technicians in the medical lab would take care of. "I want a /purpose/. Something good that lets me be good."

The words brought an odd, unfamiliar expression to Fury's face. "I think I can help you there." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a matte black USB drive. "Give this to the technician in charge. He'll give you the brief on your new identity."

"Yes, sir," the man replied, taking the drive. "Am I dismissed?"

"Get the hell out of here, Agent," Fury ordered, turning back to his computer. He didn't hear the man leave. Not that he expected to.

The treatments done by Medical Lab Three were not Outcome or anything related. The budget allocation reports described them as neuro-flexibility studies. They originated as a way to help undercover operatives integrate into their roles more naturally. A side-effect of the treatment was the reason Fury had ordered Aaron to become a subject. Emotional distance from memories, the disjointing of flashbulb recall, and a feeling of dissociation from the past. There were better ways to re-program a person, but Fury didn't allow that in his organization. He was willing to push, to smelt, and to mold, but he would not unmake. This was the best he could do for the killer that the US government had created then abandoned. The treatments would make it easier for the man to reshape himself in his own image.

Fury watched through the cameras as the man let himself be strapped to the table for the technicians' safety. On his other screen, he pulled up the contents of the two files. It was the last complete identity Barney Barton had ordered and a record from birth to death a real person. The social security number was in both. The name and genuine birth certificate were also constants. Clint Barton had been Barney's younger brother. They'd been a circus act together. Clint had been billed as a master archer. Barney's personal notes on the file confirmed the claims. Clint Barton had been one hell of a sharpshooter and performer, but one file also identified him as much of a drunkard as his father. He'd been killed by a stroke in his mid twenties after serving two tours of duty in the Middle East. The stroke was almost certainly from the chronic alcoholism he'd had since he was fourteen. There was also a blacklist in his military records. The only reason he hadn't been dishonorably discharged was because of his shooting.

The other file said that Clint Barton wasn't much more a drinker than any other soldier. He'd been cited for insubordination a few times and had a chest full of medals for valor. He'd gone dark after Afghanistan, and there wasn't much in the way of records about him until he joined SHIELD around the same time Aaron Cross and Dr. Marta Shearing disappeared from a hotel room in Tokyo.

Fury was well aware that Barney had taught Aaron how to shoot a bow as part of their bonding as a team. Watching them shoot arrows at anything that moved had become a spectator sport around SHIELD HQ. The range scores suggested that Aaron had been more than proficient. The videos of their training, intense to the point that Fury wondered why Aaron had put up with it, let alone slept with the man, proved that it was more than just a pasttime to entertain rookies. Barney had been grooming Aaron for his new identity from the beginning. It was the least Fury could do for his old trainee to see that it was used.

Pressing the extension for R and D, Fury told the stuttering intern on the other end, "Start fabricating the gear from the Hawkeye file. We've got an agent who's going to need it soon."


	2. The Grey Knight

Byer paused to look through the one way glass at the dull looking smile on Subject Five. The two psychologists he'd been berating looked at each other in horror. They really hadn't been to explain to the head of NRAG how they'd managed to find a subject for Outcome that continuously failed the standardized tests they gave him but regularly aced the simpler, less education biased IQ and never had anything less than a glowing review.

Subject Five had blown his last test mission spectacularly. His infiltration technique hadn't even gotten him past the front door of the testing facility. It was the worse test run Outcome had ever seen and had drawn the attention of Eric Byer himself. "Get me his files, now," Byer snarled, staring at Subject Five. "And put him in a containment room. I want to talk to him."

"Of course, sir," Bill Robertson, senior psychologist, replied, blotting the sweat up his upper lip with a crumpled tissue. "Phil, get Colonel Byer those files. I'll isolate the subject."

Phil Gundersen, brand new PhD, gave his boss a betrayed look at being thrown under the bus of Byer's wrath. "This way, Colonel." He led Byer through the door trying to bite back any attempt at nervous chatter. Byer's mouth was hard with anger as he followed.

Bill sighed, rubbing his temples, before banging on the glass. The trainer paused, his ferocious scowl turning into a milder frown. Then he said, "We are taking a break, Kenneth. Doctor Bill wants to talk to you," in a tone the polar opposite of his harsh bellowing from the moment before. He spaced out his words carefully, letting Kenneth watch his mouth form the words. Subject Five's comprehension skills had grown exponentially since he began the blue regime, but due to the habits of a lifetime that the subject couldn't shake, many of the trainers reverted back to their original way of communicating with him. Bill had told them what was beginning to feel like every other hour not to coddle the subject and stop indulging in their instinct to work at his level. It was all the psychologist could do not bang his head on the glass.

Subject Five relaxed his spine, hunching a little to make himself smaller as he padded after his trainer. Bill meet them at the door with his own scowl. "Put him in containment, now."

The trainer frowned, "I haven't had a chance to get him hydrated and topped off yet."

"Byer is here. Just put him in containment four. He'll survive." Bill ordered sharply. He reached over and checked the pill container hanging around the subject's neck. The trainer winced. The Outcome subjects were highly trained weapons, but the scientists still manhandled them like lab rats. There hadn't been any severe accidents yet, but the trainers, mostly ex-military, knew it was only a matter of time.

The container was almost full with a single set of pills missing. Bill snapped it shut and let it drop back onto the subject's chest. "Has he dosed today?"

"He's still on twice daily doses. He's only had the first," the trainer reported. "Doctor, at least let me get him a bottle of water."

Bill used his keycard to open the electronic lock on the containment room. A large four had been stenciled on the door. Inside the concrete room was a single barred window barely a four inches wide and a foot long, two metal chairs that were bolted to the floor, and a table that was also secured. The trainer pointed to the chair across form the window and said, "Sit there, Kenneth. Do as the doctor says."

"Yessir," Subject Five replied, sitting straight in the indicated chair, eyes darting towards the window. 

"We don't have time," Bill decided. "Byer wants to interview him personally. Lets at least pretend we know how to handle our people."

The trainer bit his tongue. Instead, he told the subject, "An officer will be here soon to speak to you. Answer all of his questions as best you can."

He waited until Subject Five responded with a quiet, "Yessir." Then he gestured for Bill to lock his trainee in the containment room.

Byer closed the folder with a snap, taking a deep breath to keep himself from breaking the neck of the moronic scientist mouthbreathing across the filing cabinet from him. The idea was brilliant, he'd grant Robertson that. Kitsom's shooting was superhuman before the modifications. He wasn't smart enough for sniper school, but his range scores and confirmed kills spoke for themselves. The trainers had been impressed by Kitsom's progress in other tactical and martial areas. He'd proven apt with explosives, hand to hand, and alternative weapons as well as rifles and handguns, combat tactics, and simple maneuver planning. There wasn't a single reference to insubordination or resistance to the training and indoctrination. From his test results, Kenneth Kitsom should have been Outcome's poster child.

"Take me to see him," Byer ordered Phil, standing abruptly. "Let's see how much damage you stupid fucks managed to do."

"He's been following the standard program with the usual adjustments for individual needs," Phil said, trying to keep the offense out of his voice as he scurried after Byer. "We haven't done anything /damaging/ to him. He's far too valuable."

Bill was skulking in the hall and heard the conversation. Especially Byer's angry retort of, "The subject started out with mental retardation. As he improves on the chems, he's all but a tabla rosa. He should be blowing every other subject out of the water. The fact he's not is on all of you." Wisely, Bill retreated to his office before Byer and Phil appeared. If Byer wanted a piece of the head scientist, he could come after him himself.

The room they'd put Kitsom in looked like every other interrogation room Byer had ever seen. Kitsom glanced at the door as it slid open, then looked back to the slit of the window on the wall across from him. Kitsom was dressed in a plain, grey cotton t-shirt that was still dark and stiff looking from sweat, a plain black fatigue pants with the pockets cut off, and black jungle boots. He was shaking slightly, licking his chapped lips as he stared out at the sunlight.

"Hello, Kenneth, do you know who I am?" Byer asked, smoothing out his tone from the fight he'd been having in the hall.

The man jerked his head towards Byer, looking vaguely startled at being addressed directly. "Yes, sir. You're an officer here to talk to me. Dr. Bill called you Byer, but I don't know your rank."

Kitsom was more alert than they'd been giving him credit for. That was for sure. "My rank doesn't really matter here. You can just call me sir." Byer noticed how Kitsom rotated his jaw, chewing on his tongue a little to increase salvia production. "Are you thirsty, Kenneth?"

"Yessir," Kitsom responded promptly.

Byer bit back a sigh when no further information was forthcoming. "Before you were told to speak to me, what were you doing?"

"Obstacle drills and wind sprints," came the crisp answer. "My performance was not adequate on my last test run. I was re-conditioning for the next attempt."

"The good doctor pulled you before your trainer could start recovery?" Byer guessed caustically.

"Yessir," Kitsom replied, subdued by the tone.

Byer growled to himself, sliding gracefully out of the chair. "At attention, Kenneth." Obediently, Kitsom stood, spine straight, hands neatly at his side, and heels close together. "You know how to follow at three paces?"

Kitsom's eyes narrowed slightly, "Never done it before, sir, but I can manage."

"Just keep pace with me, don't worry about form. Do not respond to your trainer or any of the doctors. You're orders are coming from me." Byer enunciated clearly. Another soft, "Yessir" echoed in response. "I'll get you some water when we get to the car."

"Sir," Kitsom asked hesitantly, falling into step behind Byer. "Where are we going?"

Byer smiled thinly, "You're coming back to Virginia with me." There was a short huff of surprise, but Kitsom was too well indoctrinated to protest. His boots slammed the floor in perfect sync with Byer's own soft soled loafers, three careful paces behind. Robertson and his lackey protested loudly. The trainer wisely stopped them from physically preventing Kitsom's leaving. Byer would have just ordered Kitsom to break an arm to make a point. To the scientists' horror, their test subject ignored them completely, eyes roving quickly and carefully around the room, searching out any danger to Byer.

Opening the door, Byer gestured Kitsom through. "Go to the car. Get in the passenger's seat. There's bottles of water in the color in the footwell. Have as many as you want, but don't make yourself sick."

"Yessir," Kitsom replied crisply. There was a bounce to his steady stride as he made his way to the black Crown Vic. In the sunlight, he looked alive, light hitting his stiff, sweat spiked hair and making blonde highlights apparent. The wane slump from the containment room was gone. His eyes, when he turned to glance back at Byer to confirm this was the correct vehicle, were a sharp, light blue with a hint developing wit that the had been washed away by grey walls and people who were too stupid to know what they had. A sharp nod had Kitsom crawling obediently into the passenger's seat.

Ruthless, tooth baring grin in place, Byer turned back to deal with the incompetent morons who'd damned near ruined his project.


	3. A Child of Man

Dita Mandy, Masters of Clinical Psychology and veteran of the first Desert Storm, closed the door to Eric Byer's office behind her. Byer leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow pointedly. "Permission to speak freely, sir?" asked his former attaché.

"For you, Mandy, always," he replied watching how her face twitched then settled. She was too good to give away all of what she was thinking, but he'd had years to learn her tells. Captain Dita Mandy of the United States Air Force, retired, was pissed.

"Rick, what the fuck was that?" Mandy said sharply, settling straight spined into the chair across from him. "Subject Five isn't stable."

Byer resisted the urge to roll his eyes. In public, he would have done it anyways, but in private, Mandy would rip him a new one. "Subject Five /is/ stable. The chems took, Dita. They took really fucking well, and those morons missed it. They were still double dosing him for Christ's sake."

"They were following protocol," Mandy snapped back. "He wasn't improving."

That was true enough by the test scores. Byer raised a hand to pause her. "How much of our intelligence is learned? That's an actual question, Dita."

Mandy considered his question duly. "There is a correlation between level of education and IQ. There's several variables that seem to be involved in that, but…"

"Okay," Byer interrupted. "Now, suppose I have a genius who grows up on an island where he can never quite grasp the language. He still has to function as a productive member of society, but he can never come out on top. What does he do?"

Lips pursed in irritation, "He'd have to strip down and focus on survival function. Whatever he does to get sustenance and shelter will be his mission, constantly."

Byer nodded, seeing her drawn into his point, "How do you think other people view him? The ones that can speak the language."

"He's an idiot. Whatever he does, he's extremely good at it, but that's all he does," Mandy said reluctantly. "He's useful to them but viewed as impaired."

"Now say that, one day," Byer continued, "our genius wakes up one day and realizes he can understand everything everyone says."

Mandy huffed, "He can't. He doesn't have the lifetime of context everyone else does. He's behind the curve, and if he doesn't tell anyone, it'll take him a lot longer than six months to catch up."

Byer nodded, "Precisely. Add to that his job was in an environment that emphasized he had only a single purpose and wasn't good for anything else. He doesn't know he can speak the language yet, because no one told him."

"You're going to give him context?" Mandy demanded. "Spend weeks on remedial education? We don't have the resources in place for the kinds of support Subject Five needs."

"I'm bringing in Rasar Esther Landshuth."

Mandy's jaw dropped slightly, before it slammed back shut. "She's not just a foreign national, she's blacklisted by every government in the Middle East, First World, and most of Asia. Her own country disavowed her. With good reason, I might add."

Byer smiled is the cold, distant way that meant he thought other people were idiots. "I find the killing of a high-ranking HYDRA officer less offensive than the rest of the world. Even if he happened to be a somewhat influential politician. There's a reason her men succeeded when others failed."

"They were fanatics," Mandy reminded him. "A rogue Sayeret squad."

"No," Byer corrected, "they were believers. How many times have we had programming crack because it contradicted an old, learned thought pattern, Dita? We've always recruited from the extraordinary. Always adults that have to undergo chemical manipulation to soften them up for the programs. We can brainwash them, but we can't re-make them in our image."

Mandy leaned back in her chair, spine curving as she considered him. "You don't want to reduce his emotional reactions." It was a clear statement. "You want to train him to react however we need, to feel for whatever cause we need him for. That's not safe, Rick. There's a reason the goal is to induce complete emotional control in assets."

"We've never had someone who we didn't have to dope into being susceptible to the training before, Dita. He's a soldier with the mental and emotional flexibility of a child. He's whatever the hell a kind word and good therapy wants him to be." Byer steepled his fingers with a quirked smile, watching his subordinate mull over his plan. "Do you want in?"

"No," Mandy replied succinctly. "It's better that he doesn't know at least one of us. What are you calling him?"

Byer shrugged, "Aaron Cross is what the list says. It's sufficient."

Mandy shrugged. The names of assets came from a randomized list, one for males and one for females. They were devoid of meaning until they were used. "You have his training plan?" A stack of papers several inches thick was pushed into her reach. She flipped through the overviews. "This is light on the re-programming drugs, Rick. He's going to be /very/ clear-headed compared to the others. The facilities and trainers aren't prepared for this."

"We'll leave that in the capable hands of the Rasar," Byer reminded her. "I want him clear-headed from the beginning. We're not trying to alter or remove what's already in place. We want to build a framework for it and our own add-ons. He'll also be more amenable to us as well this way."

"And if this goes to shit…" Mandy said pointedly, letting her voice trail off as she looked up.

Byer frowned a little at her. "I'm supervising this project personally. It won't."

"You're not going to be able to enforce the traditional rigid belief structure with this level of clarity," Mandy pointed out with a sigh. "I assume you've got an alternate structure to follow." His raised eyebrow suggested he knew she was far smarter than she was acting. "Of course, you do. I don't like it, but I'll back you, Rick."

"Thank you, Dita," Byer said in the same way he called her Captain all those years ago when she'd dumped coffee in his lap to teach him manners. He was frustrated with her obstinacy but respected her enough not to rip into her like he would anyone else.

She closed the file and rose to her feet, straightening her blouse self-consciously. After a conversation like that, she felt that she should be wearing her old uniform again and that the flimsy professional business attire she sported these days left her looking like she was in her undershirt in front of a superior officer. "Sir," she offered stiffly, resisting the urge to salute.

"Dismissed, Mandy" Byer told her crisply, turning back to his computer in place of a salute in return. On the screen, the newly dubbed Aaron Cross slept under sedation as Dr. Marta Shearing took samples to refine his regime before he was handed over to his new trainer. She looked up at the camera and flashed a thumbs up to show the doctor supervising from another room that the preliminaries looked hopeful. Even though she couldn't see him, didn't even know he was watching, Byer nodded to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Sayeret is a recon unit, sometimes considered a commando or special forces unit, of the IDF. A Rasar is roughly a master sergeant.


	4. Breaking In

"Aaron," the Rasar said coolly, "get up."

Aaron pressed his face further into the mud. If he smothered himself, she couldn't torture him anymore. "Aaron, if you don't get up, your alternate trainer will have to carry you through the rest of the course," the Rasar explained patiently. Her boots squelched through the mire until she was crouching by his head. "He can just as easily carry your corpse," she noted wryly when he pressed his face firmly downwards. The soldier seemed to seriously be considering the second option, so she reminded him gently, "You can wash out if you want, Aaron. Say the word, and I'll help you back to the barracks, a hot shower, and some painkillers."

It was the soft, encouraging refrain of training officers like her from around the world. Special forces groups were, by necessity, made of volunteers. There was no shame in opting out of a life you couldn't handle. Though there was a bitter difference between Aaron Cross and all those other hopefuls. Aaron couldn't wash out. If he did, he wouldn't be Aaron anymore. He'd be Kenneth again and that might finish what Afghanistan started. His fingers clawed in the soft earth, pulling furrows through it as he looked for something to pull himself up with. "Get up," the Rasar ordered letting her tone fall back to glacial.

"Yes, Rasar," Aaron mumbled obediently through a mouthful of sour, earthy liquid. Painfully, he forced his feet back under himself, clenching his teeth when fire ran up his back from the muscles he'd pulled falling. He staggered and nearly slid into her before righting himself. The straps of his pack dug into the layer of bruises he'd acquired since before dawn this morning when the Rasar had woken him up and made him run until the sun rose. Then she'd given him a ration bar and juice box followed by the pack and told him to keep going. He'd had exactly sixteen ounces of water since breakfast, and the dehydration headache was starting to make his vision sparkle in the corners. Squaring himself, he lifted his boot out of the hole it'd sunk into a took another step up the hill.

The Rasar didn't say anything. She leaned back on her heels and watched him. Five steps later, he slipped back to the small, level hollow where he'd fallen the first time. His face was an expressionless mask from all the black mud that coated it when he started up again. This time he made it, staggering to the black lock box that was his goal. The Rasar followed him leisurely along a dryer, less steep route. He kneeled in front of the box, fumbling the chain from around his neck off. A key had hung the pill container. It unlocked the box revealing the pieces of a rifle. With trembling fingers, he wiped the muck off his lips as he looked down at them. "Assemble it," the Rasar ordered from several feet away. "Then we're running to the shooting range to practice."

Aaron smiled just a little beneath the dirt as he pushed, screwed, and twisted the pieces into locking together. Even exhausted, even as his arms protested the slightest twitch, he knew he could shoot. That was all he was good for, really.

Byer watched the tapes from the training grounds with a raised eyebrow. "If you break him, you buy him, Landshuth."

The woman shrugged carelessly. "I am far to late in that one's life for that warning to have any meaning," she said in the accent she usually suppressed during the day. "He startled us today. We did not expect him to get back up after the ground we covered. Or to shoot straight afterwards." She sucked at her front teeth. "He is exhausted. He will be even more after tomorrow. He will need a rest, a change of scenery."

"The drugs we're using to assist the idealogical indoctrination make him too aggressive and mind-blind to take anywhere around civilians," Byer warned Landshuth sharply, eyeing the trainer. She knew that. He'd given her the packet to read himself.

Her smile suggested that she was playing his temper for the hell of it. "You have safe houses in remote locations. I've seen on television that Americans considered sleeping in cabins in the wilderness a 'vacation'. It would be a bit of tradition for him. A reward for surviving the breaking in before the real work begins."

It was a more than valid point. The other subjects were still living in a haze of drugs, preparing the base work for what would become their undercover roles. Aaron had trouble sleeping sometimes, was occasionally bored when he wasn't exhausted, and needed in a way the others had drugs for. People needed people on a basic, chemical level. It was the reason Emerald Lake had crashed and burned so badly. Treadstone had come the closest, replacing those chemicals artificially. An improved version of the Treadstone treatment was temporarily being used on the Outcome subjects to keep them happy in their isolation. Except Aaron. He spent the days being run ragged by the Rasar and the time until bed with the tutor she'd produced seemingly out of thin air learning reading, basic math, and logic skills to go with the standard Outcome ideological regime. The lack of company, for a man who'd never had choice about being alone in his life from the state home to the military, was starting to wear on Aaron, which was exactly where Byer wanted him. Though this hadn't been the original plan for initiating emotional bonding.

It was also the perfect excuse for Landshuth to interact with Aaron without the level of supervision she dealt with at the facility if Byer let her be primary on the emotional development as well as physical and mental. "I think it's a good idea. I'll pick him up a nine on Friday," Byer told her with his own bland smile. "Make sure he's clean. I've already driven hours with him stinking in the passenger's seat and have no desire to repeat the experience." Eric Byer was nothing if not smart enough to take advantage of a good idea. "I'll bring him back on Monday afternoon."

"You'll need security," Landshuth said calmly like he hadn't just usurped her scheme before she'd even gotten a foot in the door, "if you plan to be primary. They might slow him down at least if he reacts aggressively." She didn't add, 'Because I'm the only unaugmented one on your staff good enough to stop him cold.'

"I'll arrange adequate supervision," Byer agreed genially, "on my own. Thank you for your assistance, Esther. I'll take the samples and records. There's some work I'll need to get done in the next couple of days if I'm taking the weekend."


	5. Pawn to E4

Aaron resisted the urge to slump against the wall as he waited. The Rasar had told him that the officer who he'd be spending the next two days with would meet him in the empty, grey lobby. Aaron had never been able to puzzle out why the warehouse like building where he was bivouaced had a lobby complete with a low wall separating out a desk for a receptionist and cheap furniture next to plastic plants. There was a metal desk panted beige, which clashed with every other color in the monotonous room, but no chair, and Aaron hadn't found anything in the drawers when he'd explored the facility.

He didn't have any good way of keeping time here. That was a trick he remembered from boot camp, but he suspected it'd been about a month since Maryland from the number of times the he'd seen the sunrise. The officer would always have the benefit of Aaron's doubt for the single fact Aaron, he really did like his new name, could actually see the sun here. He saw it every day when he was ordered out of bed for PT. If the Rasar allowed him a midday break, he'd lay shirtless in a puddle of sunlight trying to make up for those dark months he'd been under the direct care of the scientists. His skin showed how indulgent the Rasar could be. He'd lost the institutional paleness, which pleased the new doctor who saw him once a week.

Thinking of the pretty, brunette, he checked the backpack the Rasar had given him for his sample kit. Here he was entrusted with his own samples, preferring to take them before bed and hand them over in the morning. The Rasar had told him to keep the vials in the fridge at wherever the officer was taking him and hand them over when he returned. Ritualistically, he checked his chems as well, because what were samples without the chems? He had enough for the two days he was slated to be gone. Plus two more as back up. The re-fill had come after today's dose. So he was good for the next five days more or less. That would cover most worst case scenarios for a mission this early in his training.

There was also a spare set of the plain BDUs, identical to the fresh set he'd put on after his shower, in the backpack along with the sport pants he usually wore for sleeping and the single set of jeans, t-shirt, and flannel shirt he wore on the way to the doctor's. Everything was so freshly laundered it was still warm. The requisite underwear and socks were also included. He only had his boots, but they were sturdy and nearly new. As long as wherever he was being dispatched to wasn't too cold, he'd be fine.

Aaron's meticulous equipment checking was viewed with amusement by Landshuth through one of the CCTV cameras which provided visual security for the lobby. "We've tried to make his behavior less obviously military, but it doesn't usually take well in this kind of environment," she informed Byer. "He wasn't given details and filled in for himself that this is a mission."

Byer snorted. "Landshuth, are you trying to make life difficult for me? Hypervigilance is not what I need from him until we're safely more rural." She smirked just slightly at him. It was the sort of expression that had kept her alive in a world that would have rather seen her dead. On her matronly, olive features, it looked more like your maiden aunt making a joke than the threat it was. She wasn't what most people would consider as a terrorist. Everything from her height, shorter even than Byer himself, to the way she carried her bulky muscle like excess flesh, paired with her expertise in krav maga, made her the most dangerously deceptive person Byer had ever had the displeasure of knowing. It was what let her get close to the Swedish politician she and her unit assassinated, and the reason he wanted Aaron to train with her. Harmless wasn't good enough for a deep cover operation, but it was perfect facade for a surgical strike asset.

"Have a nice break," Byer told her archly. "I'm going to take him before he starts re-arranging the furniture for maximum strategic value." He left by the side door that would allow him to unobtrusively re-enter from the front to complete the illusion that he was simply here to pick up Aaron.

"Aaron Cross?" Byer asked with a neutral smile when he pushed open the mirrored, glass doors to the lobby.

Aaron straightened, pleased to hear his new name from the man who knew where he'd come from, "Yes, sir. I'm packed and ready to roll."

"Black Crown Vic, same as before." Byer gestured for Aaron to go first. It was a sign of the training that the subject hesitated before giving Byer his back. Byer smiled to himself, because the reaction wouldn't last the weekend. The injections Aaron had been given weren't the usual cocktail of stimulants to help him concentrate and the neuro-affective drugs that helped the chems keep his brain malleable. He'd switched the cylinders himself with a slight of hand trick. So that not even Landshuth knew that she'd dosed Aaron with the discontinued compound developed by the original members of Treadstone to keep their assets from killing their trainers rather than the usual.

In fact, Mandy was the only one who knew that Byer had chosen to use TS-2 rather than something more reliable, she'd offered a horse tranquilizer, to keep Aaron calm during the drive. She hadn't been happy, but she'd calculated the dosages and loaded the cylinders for him. It was a single dose, not the prolonged exposure that Treadstone had used. But in tandem with the lack of the drug mixture that replaced social contact, Aaron wouldn't need much to push him into a positive, neurochemical release cycle just by being around Byer.

"I don't know how much you were told," Byer said genially as he popped the trunk so Aaron could stow his bag, "But this is supposed to be a chance to recover from conditioning." The dull smile Aaron gave him in reply wasn't heartening. "Have you ever been on a vacation to a cabin before?"

"Not since boy scouts, sir," Aaron replied, a gleam of interest stirring. "And I suspect this won't be twenty, pre-teen males in a two room cabin with a leaky roof and no plumbing." The bemused words proved that the flashes of wryness Byer had seen on the tapes weren't a fluke. Aaron Cross did have a sense of humor beneath the empty, automatic smiles that were his default expression. 

Byer rewarded Aaron's joke with a bottle of soda he pulled from the cooler in the backseat. "No. I've spent enough times in third world countries to know that outdoor plumbing is neither rustic nor charming." Aaron let out a soft laugh that could almost pass for a cough. He rolled the bottle Byer had given him between his palms as he settled into the passenger's seat. Buckling himself in, Byer pointed out, "You're supposed to drink that, and I find it tastes better cold."

"I don't particularly want to sleep, sir," Aaron said quietly, his smile slipping back to empty. "The Rasar says I usually run pretty cool. So long as we aren't going somewhere people dense, I don't need to be sedated." He gave the soda a resigned expression. Usually assets never realized that they were constantly handled to keep the knife edge they'd been trained to from being a danger to the public at large. With the light drug regime, Byer shouldn't have been startled that Aaron knew he was being doped safe every time he left the property. The awareness made Byer's stomach clench happily. With the TS-2 flowing through his veins, Aaron was stable enough none of his food or drink for the day had any additions planned, but Aaron didn't know that and followed the logical progression from observation, drugged observation at that, alone.

It was the kind of breakthrough that should have been recorded. Byer made a mental note to relate the whole scenario to Mandy later. "The soda hasn't been tampered with, Aaron. Your morning injection contained a low grade calming agent instead. Since we're leaving civilization behind, I wasn't overly concerned about you interacting with civilians. Only basic precautions were taken too help you deal with the overstimulation."

Aaron's eyes widened a bit, light, icy blue that didn't have the glassy look that the other Outcome subjects sported constantly. "Thank you, sir," he said with vague wonderment. The bottle's seal broke with a pop as he unscrewed the cap and tasted the soda. A barely audible, happy sigh and hushed, wet sipping was the only indication of how much Aaron was enjoying the sugar rush.

Byer kept his eyes on the road, listening to the sounds of Aaron savoring the drink. It was a cheap trick, literally only a buck twenty-nine, but there was a reason it was a classic. Aaron's carefully tailored diet left him as desperate for sweets as the babbling children Byer had handed candy bars during the hearts and minds campaigns. With that in mind, Byer had bypassed caffeinated colas in favor of the most brightly colored, sweetest sounding drink he could find at the convenience store. His assumption was definitely paying off from the almost palpable easing of tension in the seat next to him.

"Do you have any burning objections to classic rock I should know about?" Byer asked casually as he reached for the radio.

Aaron, still enthralled with his neon colored drink, mumbled, "No, sir, no objections."

Setting the dial to the local classic rock station, Byer settled in for the long, expectedly silent drive. He'd mapped Aaron Cross' development from the ground up, but there was no real, common ground in running someone else's life. So he did his best to make the silence comfortable. Though Landshuth had reported that Aaron's social interaction was still poor enough that he fell back on military behavior to hide his confusion and awkwardness, leaving the effort mostly wasted. It was still best to provide Aaron a decent example to work from later.

The cabin was up in the Blue Ridge mountains. It had been a rich man's vacation home until he'd gotten into bed with the wrong people. Byer had gotten him out, of course, and the use of the property without any documentation was a small price to pay. There were maple, hardwood floors and furniture that cost enough to make Byer's soul wince when he saw it in a magazine. There was also had a second cabin on the property, and the main building was wired up like a Christmas tree for every kind of monitoring system NRAG had ever come across. Byer had handpicked the four men doing the security rotation. They wouldn't be able to stop Aaron from killing Byer, but they'd be able to neutralize the threat before there was any other collateral damage.

However, Aaron didn't seem like he was considering such a course. His eyes were very wide as he turned a slow circle of the living room giving the windows a suspicious look. "The rooms are upstairs," Byer informed him. "Yours is the second on the left." It was a secure, corner room with three exits that didn't include the door. "Leave your bag there. There's enough light left to spend some time outside."

"Yessir," Aaron replied automatically with a longing glance at the well-stuffed, leather couch in front of a small, flat-screen television.

It was such a hang-dog expression that Byer had to laugh. "Or we could eat an early dinner and watch TV before lights out." Aaron flushed with a dumb smile trying to hide his embarrassment at being caught out. "You're allowed to be tired here, Aaron. Not with the Rasar, not in training, not in the field, but here you can be. This is a safe place." Aaron didn't look doubtful, but his agreement was the product of conditioning rather than emotion. Enough repetition, and the belief would come. "Go, put your bag in your room. Take mine to the room across the hall from yours. Fifteen minutes for recon. No more. The house was cleared before we came. You aren't weapons free. So check your targets if you find any."

Aaron hefted Byer's duffel easily. "Yes, sir," he said, eyes narrowing just a little as he tried to figure out Byer's game. He still had too many tells. Byer made another note to have Landshuth look into that. As helpful as it was to have Aaron's thoughts pasted across his face like a teletype, it had to go as soon as possible. Something like that could get an asset killed.


	6. Things in the Fog

Aaron had no clear memories of the last time he'd done this. His stomach was full of hot food to just on the right side of heavy, and the couch was comfortably cool beneath him as he watched the figures in brightly colored jerseys run across the television screen. He recognized basketball. The only knowledge of the game he had was from the pick up games on the half-court at the state home, but it was a distraction from the throb that seemed to make up every major muscle group in his body. Counter intuitively, the long ride and lack of PT seemed to make the aching worse. Though three plates of pasta and half a beer did a lot for pain management.

The rest of the beer Byer had given him hung from his fingers, glass bottom just brushing the floor. He'd never really liked the bitter taste, but it reminded him of the Army and his friends left in pieces by a muddy rivulet. LT had given him beer too as a bonding thing the night before they'd left basecamp. The last time he'd had any was with the lump of an MRE sitting like a rock in his stomach.

"Aaron," Byer said quietly, "you just went tense." The caution was gentled by the lack of judgment.

Obediently, Aaron took the first, stuttered breath of a breathing exercise to lower his heart rate and release the tension stringing his body. "Aaron, I'm coming over," Byer warned, putting his beer on the coffee table. He approached carefully, moving with his hands, always visible, in slow, predictable gestures. Aaron rolled from his stomach onto his side, leaving the bottle sitting on the floor. He looked up at Byer's face as the other man settled on the arm of the couch next to his head. "You're upset, why?" Byer asked quietly with both hands laying neatly on his knees.

"Sir?" Aaron replied, biting the inside of his cheek to hold back the pressure growing his chest.

"Don't play dumb, Aaron. That brain we gave you works just fine. Now, tell me." Byer made it an order with his voice even though his body remained neutral.

Aaron rolled to his stomach so he wouldn't have to look Byer in the eye. "The last time I drank, it was the night before we went out on patrol." The words sounded very far away. Aaron knew it probably wasn't enough detail for Byer to understand what he was talking about.

"Afghanistan," Byer confirmed. "The night before your unit was killed. You've never talked about it since your induction to the program?"

Fingers curling in the soft cotton of his undershirt, Aaron murmured, "No, sir. No one ever asked." He could feel his body shaking with slight, intermittent tremors.

An angry sigh made Aaron flinch. "Not you, Aaron. Those morons who I mistakenly entrusted you to at first. I'm going to touch the back of your neck now." Byer laid his hand gently over the fragile dip between spine and skull, his thumb sweeping slow strokes through the short hair there. The warning was all that kept Aaron from accidently doing Byer damage trying to fend off the contact. It took several long, tense minutes for Aaron to settle into the barely there petting. But when he did, it was with the enthusiasm of the touch-starved. Aaron pushed up on his elbows into Byer's hand, head dropping to increase the contact. His breathing hissed out rapidly in shallow gasps. "Aaron," Byer said, just above a whisper so Aaron had to lean closer to hear him clearly, "tell me about Afghanistan."

The words came out between pants like Aaron was running instead of relating the oddly distorted memories of the place and people that led him to Aaron Cross. He kept his weight on his elbows to keep himself as close to Byer as possible without being obvious. The shiny brown leather beneath him became beaded with snot, sweat, and tears as he shakily spoke about the ambush that should have killed him. About finding the bodies when he'd woken up where the IED blast had thrown him. About realizing that his rifle was too damaged to fire when an insurgent had walked up. About seeing his own death reflected in the dead eyes of his dismember lieutenant right before the world went dark. 

The soft sweeping of Byer's thumb was a metronome Aaron could set his heart by even as he dumped out every dirty memory onto the shiny, wooden floor for Byer to see. At then end, when Aaron was licking his lips and staring down at the mess on the leather, Byer ran his fingers down Aaron's spine as far as he could reach. Then he rucked up the grey cotton shirt until he could rub circles into the bare skin at the base of Aaron's shoulders. "Don't worry about the mess. It needed to be done. I'm going to help you sit up now, Aaron. Ready?"

"Yes, sir," Aaron whispered. Byer kept one hand firmly on his back. The other slipped beneath his chest and helped tip him upwards until the world steadied again. Aaron leaned into the arms feeling the shakiness start to ease.

"I have some tissues. I'm going to clean you up now. My hands are going to be on your face. So tell me if you start to get nervous," Byer continued crisply. He took a crumpled wade of kleenex and began to wipe the worst fluids off Aaron's mouth and from beneath his nose. Aaron sat still and let it happen. He couldn't remember anyone ever doing this for him. Not even in the faded memories of time before the state home. "That's better." Byer dropped the wet tissues into trash before grabbing another handful. He reached out and clasped Aaron's head with one had to hold it in place. Then he started wiping away the tear tracks. As he finished, the edge of his fingers brushed against Aaron's mouth. It was an incidental touch, barely tangible. Aaron found himself licking at his lips for the ghost of sensation even as Byer pulled away completely. 

"Better?" Byer inquired mildly. He got a wooden nod from Aaron. "Hey, I was Iraq, okay? I talked when I was ready, because I had someone to talk to. You didn't have anyone before. The memories went septic. That happens. Now you can talk to me about it. Look at me, Aaron." He waited until he was sure the subject's attention was on him. "It's okay to not be okay. You have to tell me. So I can arrange to have it fixed. Physical or mental, we need to know about it, or we can't patch it up. As an asset, you're only worth the weight you can pull. It's our job to make sure you’re in condition to pull your best."

Aaron, his face still flushed and damp, nodded seriously. "Yes, sir." He reached up and wiped at his eyes, child-like.

It was full dark out. The heavy, black blanket of night away from the smog and endless city lights pressed against the windows that made Aaron nervous. Byer ran his fingers through Aaron's short hair one more time. He couldn't help himself. You didn't touch the subjects of any project without forewarning and planning. Having Aaron already keyed to him, not having to go through the formalities, was like having a tame tiger at his feet. The urge to pet it was irresistible. He restrained himself to single stroke through the, surprisingly soft, blond hair. "It's late. Are you going to be able to sleep?"

Picking up the abandoned bottle, Aaron chugged the remaining beer. "Once that hits my system I will be. The chems haven't changed the fact I have no tolerance."

Byer thought that remains of the daily drug cocktail still being processed out of his system might have something to do with it as well. A single, isolated beer didn't pose a threat to the delicate chemical balance being maintained in Aaron's body. But it would have an impact on the man himself when his body couldn't process the alcohol efficiently. "Good enough. Go get ready for bed. I have some work to do." Starting with Landshuth regardless of the hour. Then Mandy. Because the sense memory of beer shouldn't have affected Aaron so strongly if he didn't have more severe case of PTSD than had been assumed. They'd have to make adjustments to compensate.


	7. Milk Runs and Turnip Trucks

"It's a milk run, Mandy," Byer sighed. "Even if he blows it, which he won't, it doesn't matter. He's damn well stable now. More so than eight, three, and six." He gestured at the books laying on his desk. Aaron's current requests for reading material tended towards things like _Middle East: Geography and Geopolitics_ and _Saudi Arabian Hydro-Carbons and World Affairs_ , and he'd gone through a lot of reading once Landshuth had gotten his skills up to par. "He's the best generalist we have with Middle Eastern dialects. Making him the only choice if we want the option of playing speed chess. Anyone else we have available at this point would only be good for planting bugs and having us translate on this end."

"If he gets caught, it's an international incident," Mandy all but barked back. "His infiltration is for shit."

"Was for shit," Byer corrected. "He hasn't been tested in a full simulation since his first re-evaluation. Even his hyper-aggressiveness around strangers has settled out. Faster, I might add, than any of the other subjects." He glared witheringly at Vendel and Ingram. Both wisely kept their mouths shut. Though Vendel had the stupid, eager look that meant he was firmly on Byer's side. Not for the right reasons, he just wanted to see if his new toy was any good. There was a reason Byer kept Vendel away from the subjects.

Ingram just looked like a rabbit caught between two predators. Early on in his career with NRAG, he'd made the mistake of stepping between Byer and Mandy. He'd been agreeing with Byer but learned quickly that disagreeing with Mandy in front of Byer made everything else null and void.

Mandy smacked the table sharply but asked, "Is this an order, Colonel?"

"It is, Captain," Byer replied, bringing his tone back to conciliatory. "Outcome Five is slated for his first external test run as of tomorrow." He watched Mandy's lips curl up before slamming back into a neutral expression. She'd need at least an hour to simmer down before he could apologize for pulling rank in public. "I want a tactical brief from you, Mandy. Vendel, get me a preliminary mission cocktail specced up for him. Ingram, put together his dossier. Remember, he was a sharpshooter first, still thinks like a sniper. So give him as many blue prints and building layouts as sheets of text. Talk to Mandy to figure out how we want him to approach this." He let the rapid fire orders settle in for ten seconds before snapping, "Why the fuck are you still sitting here?" and watching them scatter.

When he had privacy, he dialed Landshuth. "Outcome Five just picked up a mission. He leaves tomorrow night. You'll get the brief before dinner."

"You're not going to come brief our boy?" Landshuth inquired. Her raised eyebrow was audible. "It is his first mission, Rick. You should come by and do it yourself." She sounded expectant. Aaron had gotten used to Byer showing up intermittently. According to Landshuth, he never asked, too well trained, but it was obvious from the way he would jerk awake and look at her in the morning that he was hoping to be told to shower and change in clean BDUs. Byer, accordingly, had kept the trips to the cabin random, claiming they were related to good performance. But, since Aaron continued to blow past ever milemarker set for him before his trainers even realized what was happening, this wasn't actually true. Landshuth had been forced to start assigning Aaron literally impossible task that made him feel that, when he'd done well, he'd been perfect and, when he failed, it was his mistake. It was the only way she could think of to keep him grounded. Heavy-handed gaslighting wasn't Byer's preferred tactic, it undermined a subject's confidence too much. However, Aaron would never go far afield enough that it would matter in the long-term.

Byer hesitated. Aaron had become much closer to Byer as Landshuth pushed him past his limits, past human limits. It might be too impersonal for someone else to give the orders for the first mission. "You're right. I'll be there tonight. Have a conference room ready for me. I'll stay the night. His alternate trainer can act as the field officer. Prep him for handling Aaron alone."

"He got you a tie," Landshuth added dryly. "To replace the one he bled on. Apparently, no one mentioned to him that he receives a stipend. I helped him pick out one and purchase it. You should probably get him some books on microeconomics to go with the rest of the geopolitics and macroeconomics he reads if you ever want him to function outside of Outcome."

Icy silence from Byer made her laugh darkly. "So I wasn't wrong. We'll talk tonight after your done with him."

"That we will do, Rasar Landshuth," Byer agreed harshly before hanging up. It was a conflict a long time coming and all Aaron's fault. Everyone who had direct contact with him from Shearing to Peterson, the former marine who acted as Aaron's alternate trainer, was charmed by Outcome Five. Even Landshuth wasn't completely immune. Though, she'd always been dedicated to her soldiers. Aaron was genuinely sweet in a way that dated back to Kenneth Kitsom. A marked difference from ever other subject to come through Byer's programs. The trainers and support staff, used to vicious junkyard dogs, had naturally developed a preference for the one that took his domestication well. Byer found it amusing in most of the staff. It was beginning to become a problem with Landshuth.

Byer pulled out a small, innocuous cardboard box from his desk drawer and set in the middle of the blotter. It contained a USB drive, two gigabytes, apparently only used once, with N.R.A.G. printed on it. It was a flimsy thing, meant as a hand out at a job fair or professional conference. There was a stash of these for emergencies and guests in every office. Anyone who'd ever been there could have taken one. Byer pulled up Aaron's psychological profile on his computer and scrolled to the reaction assessment portion. It wasn't unusual to give a subject a soft target to push them over the moral event horizon for the first time. Women, old men, poorly trained bureaucrats that someone wanted dead were the most common targets for a subject's first termination mission.

Kitsom's history included the accidental deaths of three civilians in Afghanistan. A result of his unit's best sharpshooter having the situational analysis skills of a child. One of the deaths had been a nine year old girl. Though the lieutenant had concealed it from Kitsom. There was a good chance Aaron didn't even know what his former self had done, his officer buried it so deep, giving ground to Byer's suspicions. A close kill of a civilian target would shake Aaron deeply. Probably too much. Byer picked up the box and turned between his fingers. He was breaking tradition, and protocol, by giving Aaron a no-tracks, infiltration job to break him in.

The box went in his suitcase in an easily accessible side pocket. Exitus acta probat. Putting the final touches on Aaron would be worth the cost and the gamble to get there.

Mandy scowled as she handed over the thick file, the first of several that would be made over the course of the next twelve hours, that had been prepared for Aaron and his handlers. "Dita, we need to arrange to have two of our level five staff on hand when Aaron returns," Byer informed her. She gave him a wary look. Level fives were the only category of non-augmented security that had a chance in hell of stopping someone like Aaron. "They're not for him. Two level fives, easy-going, good at faking harmless. I leave the selection up to your discretion. I'll read them in when Aaron comes home."

"Do I want to know?" Mandy said quietly, raising her eyebrow. His smirk made her frown. "I guess not. I have two in mind. I've used them in the past. They're reliable, and they've been very good about handling my subjects."

"Pull'em from wherever they are and keep them close to you. I'll let you know when I want them," Byer ordered.

"Ingram and Vendel?" Mandy inquired.

Byer sighed. "Let'em loose on LARX. Seventy-two hours uninterrupted might get it off the ground and will keep them out from underfoot. You're with me. We'll be doing the observation and assessment with Landshuth."

"You really want me in on this?" Mandy replied, still unsure what Byer was playing at.

He took a step forward to lay a hand on her shoulder. "Dita, you’re the only one I trust to see this done right." She didn't look happy, but she agreed by not walking away.


	8. Knight to E4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not completely happy with how this turned out, but I needed more background in place to make Byer's game plan make sense. So, sorry, ahead of time.

Aaron carefully laid the length of silver-blue fabric flat out on his desk. He frowned ferociously at it like it would fold itself with enough intimidation. It, of course, declined to comply. "Shit," Aaron sighed. He glanced over at the pile of books on the floor. He knew how to tie a tie. He'd researched it on the internet when he'd purchased the thing with the Rasar's guidance. But there hadn't been any information on either the eHow site or the online store that explained in what state one gifted a tie. The images from the website showed the ties rolled up, but he remembered them being folded on tables the few times he'd been to a mall. He was going to have to ask the Rasar, which he'd been trying to avoid. She hadn't been pleased about Aaron's venture into gift-giving, even if she had helped. He knew she and Byer only got along professionally. Even then, they were barely civil. The few times he'd seen them together, he'd been able to taste the bitter tension in the air.

He contemplated the tie for another moment before folding it like the ones he's seen on the table. So it would fit in the empty, cardboard ammunition box which was the only kind he could find that had the right, long and flat, shape. It was stupidly childish to give Byer a gift in a box with Smith and Wesson on the top and tied with a broken bootlace. Aaron glowered like he could turn the poor wrappings into the fancy things in the storefront windows at Christmas.

There was a dull thud before Aaron realized he'd slammed his fist into his desk. A large, concave dent curved the metal beneath his knuckles. "Shit." That would be noted by whoever was on camera duty. He breathed through the sudden need to kick something. It was the drugs that helped set his training which brought on these bursts of anger and aggressiveness. The knowing didn't always help. Breathing through it when someone angered him was easier than when he was alone, and it was himself he couldn’t escape.

At his sink, with the small hand mirror taped above it, he slicked his hair back with a handful of cool water. The droplets took some of the psychosomatic heat from his scalp. It also left his hair in dark, golden spikes that made some of the women at the clinic flush when they saw him. Using the pads of his fingers, he pinched at his lips like he'd seen the female social workers at the state home do before they went out for a night on the town. The effectiveness was questionable, but it wasn't like he could do much else. Let the man behind the CCTV figure this one out.

He tensed automatically, but no perceptibly, when he felt, more than heard, the Rasar in the hallway. The chems had sharpened his situational awareness to the point of uncanny. He hadn't seen a reason to mention it. Training had gone from useful and intense to impossible. Byer's visits had started to come with longer and longer intervals between with no reasons given. Aaron could smell a setup these days. He suspected the Rasar wanted to keep him away from Byer. The reason probably had to do with her sudden realization that her scarecrow had grown not only a brain but a fully functional set of emotions as well. 

Aaron was self-aware enough to know that his feelings, he refused to be anymore specific than that, towards the man he considered his superior officer weren't entirely appropriate and partially based in the ways Byer had rescued him. From Maryland. From Kenneth's life. It didn't really matter though, because Eric, the name he got from listening where he shouldn't without getting caught, was remarkable. People called him Colonel, but he was still very young to carry that rank. He'd never missed a beat whenever Aaron asked for clarification on anything from the functional details of the government of Iran to what made a computer work. Eric was genuinely pleased with Aaron's attempts to become smarter. A marked contrast to the Rasar's sudden inclination to frown every time he managed to beat her at her own game. Which was happening more frequently as she tried to find his limits.

Aaron had discovered that he didn't like to lose now that he had the smarts to know what advantages there were to winning. The Rasar was a good trainer, better than the ones in Maryland, but it didn't mean Aaron would let her dictate the terms of what he was and wasn't capable of. Not when being the best meant a guaranteed supply of chems to keep his brains from leaking out his ears.

Or she was playing another one of her games with him and was seeing if he could cheat without getting caught. Then the frowning and the fact the trips of the cabin weren't happening as often meant that he was getting caught. Which he wasn't. The Rasar would have come down on him like the wrath of God if he'd been making that many mistakes. Probably.

Mind games would never be Aaron's forte. He was learning how to recognize them and work with them or around them, but the sensation of standing on ground that kept crumbling beneath his feet made his stomach hurt. He'd lived that way in Maryland, constantly fighting just to keep his head above the haze the scientists were trying to push him into. His environment had changed daily there. Just enough to set him on edge without being obvious. The drugs had been dosed out more liberally. Having his food and water tampered with was the worst part. To keep his head clear, he'd had to force himself to regurgitate two meals a day somewhere the trainers wouldn't notice. It was the first time in his life Aaron had gone hungry.

(Pickings had always been thin at the state home, but the staff there had a vested interest in making sure none of their charges starved. The Army had three hots and a cot just like the home. In Afghanistan, his stomach had rumbled almost constantly. It had never clenched and stabbed into his spine like that first few weeks at the Maryland facility before he realized that he couldn't stop eating completely. They'd just put the drugs in his water instead and mix it with the nutrients and calories they pushed into his stomach through his nose. In the end, it was easier just to eat then get rid of the most heavily drugged meals. It had kept him alive, and clear-headed, but it hadn't kept him full.)

The Rasar wasn't those bastards. But Aaron was starting to wonder if she was a much an ally as he'd believed. He was painfully aware exactly how little he knew about the tenuous connection between Byer and his Rasar. The Rasar's soft accent and rank made her Israeli. It wasn't good operational security to have her in Outcome unless she was an American asset. If she wasn't, Aaron wasn't sure exactly what was going on. The only solid ground he had was Byer, and the knowledge that Eric Byer was an American officer running an American intelligence program.

There were four, loud taps on the door to Aaron's room. Only his alternate trainer, Peterson, knocked. The large ex-military man was very conscientious that Aaron didn't have the greatest track record with men in the program. Aaron appreciated the consideration. He'd only almost killed the man twice. Luckily, Peterson had the good sense to go limp and not struggle, getting away with just some bruises. "Aaron, the Colonel is here to brief you. We're set up in trainers' part of the building. I'll escort you there." His voice was muffled by the door.

Peterson didn't know that Aaron had snuck into the trainers' wing more than once. The Rasar maintained the polite fiction around him that she hadn't given her trainee permission to explore his new environment indiscriminately. And that Aaron hadn't pushed that particular allowance to near the breaking point before backing off to his assigned area. Peterson had a nice room for the days he stayed over. It had three windows, an extra long cot to accommodate his height, and a desk made of wood, cheap plywood, instead of metal. Aaron had thought about trying to take the room for its windows. Then the training set, and he couldn't bear to sleep with that much exposure. His own room, a large, concrete holding cell with the door replaced with something much flimsier, suited him better.

Scooping up the box, Aaron tucked it under his arm and stepped into the hallway. The Rasar came and went from Aaron's quarters as she pleased. Aaron had made it clear Peterson didn't have that right. Peterson stood just out of arms reach, waiting. "What color did you two finally decide on?" he asked with a small smile when he saw the box.

"Blue," Aaron replied, practicing the smile the Rasar referred to as 'charming and harmless', in return.

"That's very good, Aaron," Peterson said in the firm, quiet way he had. "You need to relax the muscles around your eyes more. Remind your therapist during your next session to work on that. The general expressions are good, but you still telegraph intent with your eyes." His eyebrow quirked a little as they walked side-by-side down the hall. Unlike the Rasar, Peterson never gave Aaron his back. "I'm sorry I missed the run this morning. How's the shoulder doing?"

Aaron shrugged. "Sore. I don't think the sprain was as bad as you thought."

Peterson snorted. "No, Aaron, it was bad." The joint had been hard and hot to the touch. The only reason Peterson hadn't dragged Aaron to the clinic by the scruff of the neck was that the Rasar had overruled him. "I'll rub you down again tonight. I don't know exactly when they're shipping you out, but I'll do my best to make sure you have a full range of motion before you go."

"Can you do my legs to? My calves have been locking up on the morning runs. It'll get worse if I end up somewhere cramped."

"Yeah. I'll pack some shot blocks in with your gear. Dose them out when you can drink a lot of water. They'll help with any muscle spasms," Peterson answered, startled that Aaron had requested therapeutic massage. It was usually something of a battle for Peterson to get close enough to work on the damage Aaron did to himself.

Aaron shrugged with one shoulder at him. He didn't care to explain himself to Peterson. Peterson didn't press the point. It was easier to pick his battles. 

They continued through the empty, cavernous warehouse space towards the more office like structures of the trainers' wing. Peterson stopped at the gray door to the rarely used conference room. He rapped twice. Byer called, "Enter."

Aaron barely managed to bite down on the inside of his cheek before he could smile. He was trying to smile less as the expression became embodied with actual emotion rather than a default defense mechanism. He let Peterson enter the room first. Then followed three steps behind. Byer looked up from his laptop at them, immediately dismissing Peterson to focus on Aaron. "What happened to your face?" he demanded sharply taking in the damage peppering Aaron's jaw, mouth, and eyes.

"I fell," Aaron replied, embarrassed. "Lost my footing on the obstacle course. Hit some stuff before I could catch myself."

Peterson frowned and didn't mention the footing Aaron had lost was a humanly impossible jump. The fact he'd caught himself on the scaffolding below and climbed the rest of the way up was remarkable. Rasar Landshuth had made Peterson test that particular piece of equipment several times. In the latest incarnation, Peterson couldn't even make it close enough to catch the bottom rung of the scaffolding with a running start let alone from a standstill like Aaron.

"Come here," Byer said in exasperation. "Let me see what you did to my project." A small grin escaped Aaron at that. He stepped forward, hesitance about the wrapping job beneath his arm forgotten. Byer carefully lifted Aaron's chin up to examine the damage. "Jesus H. Christ, Aaron. Did you forget to block?" His tone was rapidly descending to anger. Peterson flinched a little, but Aaron kept smiling through the abuse. "How did you not fracture something?" Byer muttered to himself, pulling down Aaron's collar to see the extent of the damage. He probed the collar bone. Aaron didn't flinch. The bone was smooth and solid beneath the battered exterior. Byer smirked. It had been fractured. Not badly, but the pattern of the bruising made it obvious. The bone had healed, the soft tissue was repaired, but the blood hadn't reabsorbed. It just looked like bruising. "Well, I'll be damned." He used his fingers to smooth the crew neck back into place.

"The chems are working," Aaron said softly. "I felt something crack when I hit metal, but my hands worked when I grabbed the struts. The pain reaction wasn't nearly as severe as I remember. I was able to finish the course. By the next day, the swelling was almost gone. The bone stopped hurting two days later."

Aaron's verbal report confirmed what Landshuth had suspected in hers. The fact Aaron hadn't reported it meant that he was formulating and testing his own theories about his chem altered physiology using himself as the subject. It was almost adorable how he was trying to mimic the staff around him. "We won't know that for sure unless you report next it time. So we can record actual evidence, Aaron," Byer said, though he sounded more fond than enraged. "Go, sit down. We're waiting on your Rasar. Peterson, I'll want photographs of those injuries for the good doctor. Next time, call it right after it happens and do a pain scale inventory. We have a fair amount of data from our more direct tests, but this kind of accidental injury will be more accurate to assess field reactions."

"Yes, sir," Peterson said quietly. He made his face as expressionless as possible to hide his distaste for the whole exercise. Byer's eyes were cold as he looked the man over. Peterson was used to it. He was intimately familiar with the kind of officer Byer was. The work paid well, a stark difference from the lean times when there was no combat pay. So Peterson did his job and kept his mouth shut, because he loved his wife and their white picket house with three dogs. Sometimes, when he was mixing up Aaron's drugs, he thought about what it would take to make it look like an accident. Aaron was a sweet kid, clever from the chems but damaged in the lingering way of children with a bad history, which no drugs could ever touch. Peterson was as gentle with him as he could afford to be. Because gentleness was not something Aaron Cross would ever get in humane quantities. Aaron soaked up Byer's volatile attention and the Rasar's casual cruelty like it was real affection. There was a distinctly human longing in Aaron which Peterson's last trainee in Treadstone had never shown. But that man had been a cold-eyed bastard even before the program. Peterson would never regret what had happened to David Webb. Aaron though, Peterson was going to regret not having the balls to kill him gently, in his sleep, for the rest of his life, but Byer had counted on that from the beginning. The yellow streak up Peterson's spine had saved his life. It was a fact Peterson had come to accept.

"Please tell my why, Rick, you assign me to teach idiots," Landshuth snapped as she strode in from the door opposite the one to the hall which lead to a video conference area. "They don't care to listen to how they're failing to set the programming when they use sleep deprivation tactics. It doesn't bloody work. Right, Aaron?"

Leaning back in his seat a little, Aaron drawled wryly, "Just pissed me off personally, Rasar."

Landshuth spat something in Hebrew in vehement agreement with her trainee. "You don't sleep, you're brain doesn't recover. No recovery, the elasticity will never reach it's maximum potential. I thought these were your most competent scientists, Rick."

"Scientists being the key word there, Rasar," Byer said. "We'll talk later," he cut her off before she could continue.

He tapped at his computer before starting. "The mission is straightforward. From a thousand feet up, there's a person of interest who just entered the country on a diplomatic visa from the Syrian Embassy." Byer flicked on the projector showing the picture of a handsome, young Arabic man on the white wall. "Nijad Chaaban He's taken a job as an attaché for the Minister of Culture. He's suspected of being a contact point for several, domestic extremist groups." 

Byer tapped the spacebar. The picture changed to the smiling, face of an older man with a heavy jowl. "At the same time, Yasir Kuzbari, a prominent business man but low-level political player, is staying at the embassy, supposedly as part of a business trip. He's not ours, but we suspect he might belong to the Brits or the Canadians. Either way, we can consider him not actively hostile. Aaron, you've been hired as his translator and assistant for the next week. The woman he usually uses won cruise tickets. She and her husband are currently in the Caribbean. She recommended you highly for your aptitude with several Arabic languages. You'll use your position there to observe and report on Chaaban. We don't see this going any further at this point." He slid a packet across the table to Aaron.

"Your cover is in there. Overview, Aaron Crosby. Former specialist in the Army. You speak three languages other than English. Arabic and Mesopotamian Arabic fluently, and Kurdish passably. There's an incident report in there as well. It should be convincing enough to keep Chaaban from trying to offload you without cause. You worked with a native Iraqi woman while you were in the Army. You had a bit of a crush. She was killed by friendly fire. You didn't re-up and went on to become a civilian teacher. You took this job as a favor to Ms. Mariana Goldberg, Kuzbari's usual translator."

"That sounds very convenient," Landshuth commented drolly. "Not like a CIA set-up at all."

Byer responded with an impassive look. "It would be ham-handed for a cover, but that's why Ms. Goldberg recommended Aaron Crosby. She's aware of his history, and the fact it makes him impeccably apolitical. And somewhat useful as a discrete bodyguard should Mr. Kuzbari wish to sample the local culture. Mr. Goldberg usually escorted his wife on those ventures. Aaron can fill both roles quite neatly."

Aaron flipped open his packet, speed reading the bullet points on each page. He chewed at the inside of his lip. It was a habit he'd picked up on the insistence of the Rasar to hide the pleasure he took in any written word he could get his hands on. "Do we have an accurate layout for the embassy. There's no way in hell this one is correct. It'd be a waste of concrete in a lot of places if there were really this many unnecessary support structures."

"It's the best we have, Aaron," Byer said, shaking his head. "Work with it." With a huff, Aaron turned back to his diagrams. "Peterson, you're going to be acting handler for this mission. You and Aaron take tomorrow for tactical and syncing. Rasar, you're with me for the next few days." Landshuth snorted.

Peterson shifted uncomfortably as he saw Aaron's eyes narrow. "Yes, sir. I'll go ahead and start tonight."

"Good enough. The Rasar and I have business, but I'll need twenty minutes with Aaron before we start." Byer closed his laptop with a click. "Your two clear the room. Audio recording off too. I want privacy."

"I'll take care of it, Rick," Landshuth said softly, dangerously, as she stood. "Peterson, you and I can talk in the hall." She flicked a switch that didn't seem to go to anything before leaving to turn off the audio recording.

Byer waited for the two trainers to clear the room before speaking, "What do you think?"

"I can do this," Aaron said confidently, flicking through the folder. "The cover is based on my language skills. So it'll be solid." He closed the folder and picked up the box, turning it over in his hands.

"What's that?" Byer asked with a slight smile.

A dull flush rose in Aaron's cheeks. "I… It's for you, sir." He held out the box quickly like he was debriding a wound.

Byer took it with a small, reassuring smile. "Thank you, Aaron." He made sure his expression was steady as he carefully pulled loose the boot string to slide the box apart. His eyes widened a little at the quality of the gift. He pulled off the gray, pin-stripped tie he was wearing. A good shake, unrolled the blue fabric. "Did you look up how to tie one?"

"Yes, sir," Aaron said, still flushed but pleased.

"Get over here and do a full Windsor for me. I've never been good at those," Byer ordered, pushing his chair back. Aaron moved around the table with the slightly unnatural grace that showed up the when he was nervous. He took the tie and stepped closer to Byer. Byer spread his legs so Aaron could stand between them, knees bumping the edge of Byer's chair.

Aaron bit his lip in concentration as he draped the tie around Byer's neck. The thin, shiny material swung fluidly through the air as Aaron's clever fingers worked through the knot. It hung a neat inch below the base of Byer's throat.

"Go ahead and finish it up," Byer reassured him as Aaron hesitated. Aaron was well aware that most people who knew what he was wouldn't want him anywhere near their throats. Carefully, Aaron pressed two knuckles to the soft skin where Byer's shirt collar gaped. His skin was fever-hot from how high the chems made his metabolism. The knot slid easily up to fit snugly into the collar. Aaron extracted his fingers, brushing just the tips against Byer's pulse before pulling away. Byer didn't reprimand him. He simply raised an eyebrow and watched as Aaron obediently backed off.

"Thank you," Byer said honestly, admiring his new tie in the reflective steel of the table. "It's very nice, Aaron." He ran two fingers down the material to feel it.

Aaron scuffed his boot against the concrete self-consciously. "The Rasar helped me. I don't know anything about suits and ties and stuff."

"Aaron, it's perfect. Thank you." Byer didn't mention that the silk was almost the same shade as Aaron's eyes in the sunlight. He suspected that was Landshuth's contribution. Her sense of humor was twisted enough she probably found it amusing. "Now, I'm aware you don't prefer working with Peterson, but since we need to prove your field worthy, we're switching up handlers. As far as I know, he's a consummate professional and has experience with specialized assets like you. Is there anything I should know about you and him?"

"No," Aaron replied promptly, falling into the at ease position. "It's… I just preferred female staff after Maryland. Peterson's solid. We work well when there's a task."

"Good. I want you to loosen up around him. Spar, talk, just sit near him. I don't really care. But if he's got to pull you out, I don't want anyone doubting whatever cover he uses." Byer flipped his laptop back open. "You'll do well, Aaron." It wasn't reassurance so much as an order. "Dismissed. Go do your homework."

The benign disregard calmed Aaron's flush and turned it into a small smile. "Yes, sir, I'll do my homework. I won't fuck this up."

Byer raised an eyebrow. "No. I expect you to surpass expectations."


	9. Definition of Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed by Julorean. Praise her, as she put up with my somewhat questionable grasp of English to save you the pain. All remaining mistakes are completely my fault.

"Landshuth, why the hell aren't you running Aaron on his first mission?!" Peterson demanded just loudly enough that she could hear him. They stood practically toe to toe in the hallway, but their postures were concerned, not aggressive. They'd had to give up personal space to keep their conversations from Aaron. He'd had the sharp ears and quiet nosiness of a survivor from the beginning. That had nothing to do with the chems. 

Landshuth shrugged. "Byer. I do not know what that man is up to, but I know I don't trust his intentions." Her mouth twisted into a grimace. "When I cut that man open, I fully expect to find clockwork pumping blood instead of a heart."

Peterson raised an eyebrow. Landshuth usually pretended to be civil towards Byer in front of everyone else. "Pot, have you met kettle?" he asked softly. Their tenuous friendship permitted that much.

She rolled her eyes at him. "I am not sure if I will return. If I do not, you must continue prying Aaron from his fascination with Byer."

"I'm still not convinced that Aaron falling in love with Rick Byer is a bad thing," Peterson sighed. "Especially if it turns out to be mutual. He'll be safe then. The man's a cold bastard. But no one's that cold. Not unless a program rips it out of them."

Landshuth snarled out a nearly silent laugh. "Eric Byer is not a man, Mitch. The sooner you realize that. The sooner you'll understand why we must keep Aaron away. We do no favors to Aaron or the world with anything else."

Peterson huffed. "Look, Aaron's already pissed at you. And he's not wrong."

"Aaron is a child in a man's body," Landshuth snapped. "Don't tell me you’re too blind to see that? Byer wishes to use Aaron as a means to power. If we don't pull them apart, Aaron will never be able to become anything other than Byer's dog and a killer. Even soldiers have the right to be their own person off-duty."

He couldn't meet her eyes, so Peterson looked over Landshuth's shoulder. The discomfort was apparent on his face. "While that's completely true, what's your game, Esther? And don't tell me you don't have one. You hate Byer because you're the same people."

"I am a rat in Byer's maze, Mitch. I have no rank, no country, and a great many people would pay incalculable amounts to watch me die. All I want is get out alive with my people intact. There is nothing else left." Landshuth rocked back on her heels. She reached up and smoothed her gray streaked hair. "You need to keep cutting down on his greens. Outcome Nine is getting worse, and she's at half the dose Aaron is. "

"He'll lose some of the advantages we've been seeing if we keep it up," Peterson pointed out. "And what about the blues? He's taking the highest dose of those too."

"The chems were never meant to support the level of improvement we've seen in him. We don't have a choice with the blues, not if we want to have Aaron Cross. But we can control the greens. There's a reason super soldier projects don't succeed in the long term. I've lost men to experiments like these before. Aaron will not join their ranks. And, since my plan to convince Byer of this has failed thanks to Aaron's pigheadedness, you have to convince the good doctor we're right tomorrow. Get her to take tissue samples. I'd bet you a bottle of arak that Aaron will show the same early stage symptoms as Nine did." She waved an impatient hand through the air worryingly close to Peterson's face.

Peterson grimaced, leaning back a little. "Aaron should have a say in this, Esther. It's his body."

"And yet it's you who puts the needle in his arm every day," Landshuth reminded him caustically. "I am not the only one he's angry at."

"Don't remind me. I still have nightmares about the last time I startled him," Peterson hissed back. "I'm not looking forward to having to deal with him alone, anymore than you are at having to leave him with me. I wasn't meant to be his permanent handler."

Exasperated, Landshuth raised her voice to a louder whisper. "I will speak to him about behaving for you. He's never disobeyed you before."

"I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about what he might do if you disappear," Peterson said pointedly. "I'll just be the first body to hit the ground if that happens. It doesn't matter how angry he is at you. You're still the closest thing he's ever had to a mother."

There was a certain smug pleasure in watching how Landshuth's face contorted at that statement. "That is bullshit. I've trained hundreds of boys. Aaron is just one of the better quality ones. To none of them have I been a mother."

Peterson wondered if any of the other soldiers she'd trained had ever been allowed to sleep with their heads in her lap like Aaron did when the nightmares came. He doubted it. For how ruthlessly she broke Aaron apart every day, she was permissive where the cameras couldn't see. Not that Peterson could talk. If Aaron allowed it, the old soldier would be even worse than Landshuth. "Fine. I can't promise I can keep him away from Byer until you get back."

"Just keep him out of Byer's bed," Landshuth muttered. "Byer is not so corrupt he doesn't recognize it for the abuse of trust it would be. But Aaron is persistent, beautiful, and wants to be in love. I don't trust men in the face of such a combination. Do you?"

It was a sickening thought. Aaron was lethal in every way thanks to his training, but in so many ways, he was still a exploring this new adulthood the chems had brought him, including complexities of emotions he'd never experienced fully before. He'd agree to anything just to try it in the same way he devoured books, his social interaction therapy, and new languages. If he honestly believed he was in love… Aaron had been taught by the program to see affection in people who ordered needles stuck in his spine. "Christ, do you think…" Peterson stooped over until they were breathing the same air. "He was a colonel in the Air Force. He's in charge of politically sensitive intelligence programs. There's no way in hell he's gay."

"It doesn't strike you as curious an influential military man would have a happily married, female career officer for a second-in-command instead of someone with more political currency or perkier breasts?" Landshuth said wryly. "I do not doubt Captain Mandy is competent, but competence is not the usual way to a position like hers. She's not related to anyone, holds not favors or influence that she didn't earn through Eric Byer. So why does he keep her around when senators' sons clamor for her job?"

Peterson glanced around nervously. "Byer's not exactly your usual silver spoon military brat. He keeps her around because he trusts her. The assistant director position is to repay her loyalty."

"Maybe. Then again, Byer doesn't ever do things for a single reason. Every politician who meets them thinks he's sleeping with her. Thus, why he's not married or paying some blonde with silicone improvements to attend to him. I can personally attest many foreign intelligence agencies also believe this. Very convenient for a man like Byer, don't you think, if people believed they knew something about him and they were wrong?" Her tone remained neutral.

"I cannot believe I just had that conversation," Peterson mumbled, sure that Byer was about to appear out of thin air and shoot them both. "While Aaron's on mission, he won't be anywhere near Byer. If you're not back by then, I'll find some excuse to keep them apart. But, Jesus, Esther, this is none of our business. Aaron is a grown ass man even when he isn't."

Landshuth said something in Hebrew that was either scathing or profound. Peterson didn't get to find out which, because Aaron had been dismissed. He seemed a little dazed. A hint of flush lingered in his cheeks as he paused in front of the two of them. "Byer would like to see you when you’re ready, Rasar," he said with more warmth than she'd heard in several days.

"Yes, yes," Landshuth waved. "I will see to our benevolent overlord in a moment. I expect Peterson to be alive and unbroken when I return. Can you manage that, Aaron?"

"Yes, Rasar," Aaron replied obediently.

Landshuth looked troubled as she reached up and smoothed her fingers through Aaron's hair. "I am sorry, Aaron. There are many things I need to tell you when you've completed your mission. Things I couldn't tell you during training."

Aaron's gaze sharpened. "Rasar?"

"Be good for Peterson," she ordered. "Remember what your therapist taught you about facial expressions. I expect to hear grand things about your accomplishments later." She patted the heavy muscle of his shoulder as few times before walking back into the conference room. Peterson didn't know how she managed to look that calm walking willingly to what could end up as her execution. He was a little dizzy with the sudden revelation she was playing her own game, and he had no idea what it was.

"Why were you fighting with the Rasar, and what the hell is she talking about?" Aaron demanded as soon as the door closed.

"It's not a fight when you get your ass handed to you," Peterson informed him bluntly. "That was beat-down Israeli style. They keep hitting so you don't have the breath to answer any questions they might ask. Come on, I don't want to be here when Byer and the Rasar go at it. We can go to my room to study. I've got windows. So you can grab whatever sun is left."

"My question still stands," Aaron said sharply, falling into step next to Peterson.

"I don't know, Aaron. And I don't want to," Peterson replied in the same tone. "Just let me do my job. She'll answer your questions herself if we do this right."


	10. Joe Walsh Never Sang About This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All praise to the lovely Julorean for the beta. All mistakes are my own.

The mission was easy. Kuzbari found Aaron charming and competent. The best lies are mostly the truth. Even Chaaban didn't seem to suspect anything. It helped that Aaron had used bourbon as mouthwash in the morning, before lunch, and after dinner. Chaaban had assumed that Aaron Crosby was another unhappy veteran drinking away the memories. Aaron had mostly kept his mouth shut except to translate and littered bugs everywhere that wouldn't be checked often. They'd only pick up fractured chatter, but it would be discrete and harder to trace.

Aaron had managed to garner a few names and stayed close enough to prevent anything surprising from happening. As test runs went, colors were flying everywhere. Kuzbari had actually mentioned employing Aaron again in tandem with Mariana Goldberg. Every night, Aaron had gone to a rented apartment and his 'roommate' played by Peterson. He'd read from the stack of books Peterson had brought until lights out, then got up before sunrise to run until he could barely stand. It had, in all honesty, been pretty boring compared to the simulations Aaron was used to running. He never went armed, and Kuzbari's idea of a wild night involved strip clubs of the quality Aaron hazily remembered from his Army days. There wasn't anything that could threaten Aaron in a place like that.

He'd broken up one bar fight and stopped a stripper from completely rolling Kuzbari. Though he'd given her the wad of cash from Kuzbari's wallet, keeping the plastic safe. Kuzbari had been too enthralled by her naked breasts to care. She had been less than impressed by Kuzbari and overtly angered by Aaron's lack of interest. That had been an interesting conversation, a mission highlight really. Aaron had actually added new words to his vocabulary.

Now, he was kneeling in the walk-in closet he'd used as a bedroom. Peterson had tried to get him into the bed, but he couldn't stand the thought of anyone being able to see him as he slept. Carefully, he pressed the slacks and collared shirts he'd worn as Aaron Crosby into neat squares that fit in his suitcase. It had been a relief to change back into his thicker, looser tactical pants and battered t-shirt. The starched collars and ironed in-seams were constricting and chafed his skin red.

"You get your kit packed up?" Peterson asked from the door to the room. "We're oscar mike in an hour.”

"Almost finished," Aaron sighed. He'd have to give the books back. They were the only part of the assignment he wanted to keep. The spine of a book of Iraqi poetry was bent. He’d dozed off on the pages the night before. The suitcase closed with minimal protest from the zipper. Aaron carefully opened the book and read to himself, "Ist whyda abada. Kil mafialamer. Anni. Sert refyqua ewhidety."

"What does mean?" Peterson asked, moving in carefully measured steps towards Aaron.

"Literally or the actual meaning?" Aaron asked without looking up.

Peterson sighed, "How would it make sense to me, Aaron?"

"I am not lonely," Aaron said his voice rising just a little then falling on the last syllable. "The truth is, I befriended my loneliness."

"Aaron," Peterson repeated, aggrieved.

Aaron looked up from the book. "That's what I said. It's first part of a poem. That's not my favorite part though." He ran his finger down the page of elegant script and cleared his throat.

"Be careful with his limbs:  
Mend him with fine yarn  
And don't rip his hem,  
Gather up his stray threads,  
And squeeze him gently  
When he is wet-  
Even if he seems like just an old shirt,  
Really, he is a heart."

Peterson sat down on the edge of the bed, watching how carefully Aaron handled the pages. It had been included to cement Aaron's cover as a professional translator. They'd had a bitch of a time catching Aaron up on the basics of American literature, the cultural background he'd need to blend in. They hadn't even started on international works.

It wasn't surprising that Aaron had taken the chance to read all the books of Arabic literature he'd been issued for the mission. Aaron loved Middle Eastern languages. He'd admitted to bullying the native guides in Afghanistan and Iraq into teaching him how to make the sounds before he even knew what he was saying. Unsurprisingly, the kind ones had focused on useful phrases like, "I am an American." and "I will shoot you if you move." The cruel ones had taught him insults and inflammatory remarks sure to make any situation worse. But the early practice seemed to pay off as Aaron's accent was the least American his language instructors had ever heard even in the early stages. Granted, every dialect he spoke still sounded like it was filtered through northern Afghanistan, and that wasn't ever likely to change.

"If you can hide that, you can have it," Peterson informed Aaron. "I'll tell anyone who asks I spilled coffee on it and tossed it."

Aaron eyes lit up. The blank looking smile he'd sported since the beginning of the mission curled into something more intimate as he looked down at the text. "Thank you, sir."

"One condition," Peterson added. Aaron stiffened, smile fading to a straight line as he looked up. "You have to translate your favorite parts for me sometime. I spent most of my time in that part of the world shooting things. It'd be nice to have a chance to get some culture in, even if it's a little late in the game."  
Aaron looked suspicious but agreeably offered, "Yes, sir." Which really wasn't different than every other time he thought Peterson was too close.

"Here's your chems before I forget," Peterson said quickly, pulling the chain from around his neck and offering the container to Aaron. "Have you got your samples packed too?"

There were several stiff nods from Aaron as he snatched his pills back. "I put the dry ice in like the doctor said before I taped up the box." He slid the chain carefully around his neck. The odd, sickly tension he'd held in his shoulders and hands dissipated as he felt the weight of it against his breastbone.

"Good. The doc'll be pleased." Peterson reached into his pocket and griped the object there to gather himself for the next part. "I got you something else." He carefully took the cheap Ipod knock-off out of his pocket. "The Rasar bought it for you for after your first mission. I went ahead and put a couple of classic rock mixes on there. That's what you like, right?"

Carefully, Aaron got to his feet and padded over to Peterson. "Why?" he asked clearly

"Call it a graduation present. You're Outcome Five now, not a trainee. And assets can have personal possessions." Peterson held out the small, black plastic square to Aaron. "Go on, it's yours."

Aaron took the player and unwound the headphones. He pushed one earbud in and flicked it on. The volume was turned up high, and Peterson caught a tinny blast of Supertramp before Aaron flinched and hit the button on the side to turn it down. The buttons were flat, meant to look like a touch pad, but that was just cosmetic. Aaron flipped through the play list. The music was the same as what Byer played at the cabin. It was even better than the book, and the Rasar and Peterson had cared enough to find out what he liked. He played with the buttons, figuring out how they worked, to hide his eyes. Peterson cleared his throat. "Do you like it?"

Aaron's eyes burned a little as he stared down at the dim screen, hitting the forward button as fast as he could. The discordance gave him something to focus on until the lump in his throat went away. "It's really nice. Thank you."

"Good," Peterson said quietly, but he looked a little disappointed.

Rocky Mountain Way came on. Aaron paused from his frantic flipping. "I really like this one," he said awkwardly, offering Peterson the other earbud like he'd seen teenagers on the street do.  
Peterson popped it in. He laughed. "It's one of my wife's favorites too." He leaned forward so Aaron could sway a little with the music without ripping the earbud out. "She says it makes her want to dance."  
"It kind of does," Aaron agreed. "I tried when I heard it for the first time, but I can't really…dance." He looked vaguely miffed by that.

"You've got feet like a fucking cat, Aaron," Peterson corrected. He paused, remembering how Amelia had taught him how to dance. Neither of them was very good, but it was fun. It would be something Aaron could do to socialize without talking. "Come here. My wife has two left feet, and we do this all the time. It's called swing dancing." He stood up and gestured for Aaron to put his hands on Peterson's shoulders. "You just mirror me okay? The pattern is step, step, rock, step. This is just like hand-to-hand drills. So relax."

They shuffled around awkwardly as Peterson adjusted to the beat and Aaron figured out where his feet went. Eventually they feel into sync just like when they were sparring. The music changed to Life’s Been Good. Aaron adjusted to the new beat, pulling Peterson after him. His face was pressed into an expression of intense concentration, but he seemed happy. "You can go out to certain clubs and bars and do this," Peterson explained in between trying to avoid Aaron's toes. "It's kind of fun.”

"Hmm," Aaron replied softly, doing some fancy foot work to get his feet away from Peterson's before his toes were crushed and stay on beat. "You really aren't good at this," he said abruptly in the child-like way he'd spoken before the social therapy.

"I'm really not," Peterson agreed, laughing as he backed away to leave Aaron swaying alone. "You will be though."

Aaron stopped moving, the dangling earbud slapped against his chest. "I don't think the Rasar is going to bring a specialist for this." He was expressionless as he stilled his body's desire to move, to be foolish for the sake of it.

"No. You'll just have to teach yourself," Peterson said gently, trying to soothe Aaron back into relaxing. "Or maybe she'll teach you herself. I've heard she's actually pretty good on the dance floor."

"And it isn't so deeply classified it's never seen the light of day?" Aaron asked incredulously. "I thought the fact she's human, not a cyborg programmed by Mossad, was Eyes Only. Obviously there's been a security breach." 

Peterson was so startled by the joke he didn't even laugh. Instead, he held his breath like the smallest sound would shatter the impish smile on Aaron's face. Aaron's pale eyes were wicked with good humor, daring Peterson to laugh at a woman who wouldn't think twice about slitting their throats. The distant slam of a car door broke the moment. Aaron tense, jamming his book in the small of his back and tucking his shirt in around it to hide it. The MP3 player was tucked into his boot with his pant legs bloused to hide the lump. No one had ever actively taken anything from Aaron at the Virginia facility. Landshuth would have killed them, and Byer would have approved their murder. But some habits die hard. They'd never stopped him from hiding his textbooks underneath his mattress or his favorite knife in the ventilation duct. It wasn't a bad habit for an asset to have.

"You won't know the driver, but that's okay," Peterson told Aaron as the other man scooped up his duffle. "I'm on vacation for the next two weeks. So try not to kill whoever’s filling in for me. Not all the younger dumbasses are smart enough to know they’re dead meat in a real fight."  
Aaron rolled his eyes, hefting the bag over his shoulder. "Scout's honor." He threw up three fingers in a salute.

"If you were ever a scout, they'd have disowned you by now," Peterson said, shaking his head in amusement. "Come on. I'll walk you to the car." Aaron fell into step next to Peterson. Their shoulders bumped as Aaron angled his body through the narrow doorframes and stairwells. He didn't flinch away from the unintentional contact anymore, which was probably the most useful part of the mission in Peterson's mind.

The driver was about Peterson's age, a big, black ex-navy man if he was anything. He resembled Aaron's first trainer, who Aaron had been fond of despite the incompetence. He wouldn't have any problems with Aaron if he didn't start any. Aaron dumped his bag into the unlocked trunk and slid into the back seat. The driver came around to speak to Peterson, a real professional checking that Aaron was stable for transport.

Peterson shook the driver's hand. "You don't need to dope him for transport. He's pretty much inert unless you try to start something physical. No civilian incidents and unlikely ever to be."

The driver nodded, flashing crooked white teeth. "An easy one then. This is from Landshuth. She asked me to pass it along." He handed over a sealed, yellow envelope with Byer's neat letters on the address and Landshuth's scrawl indicating it was meant for Peterson.

"Thanks," Peterson replied. He stood on the sidewalk and waved until the car pulled into traffic. Then he went back into the apartment and opened the envelope. It contained Aaron's weekly tox screen along with suggestions of how to adjust his non-chem medications. Doctor Shearing had included a note about the greens. She'd cut him down by a third, which seemed to stabilize the tissue samples. Peterson removed the papers to flip through it, but the envelope wasn't empty. The envelope tipped out a small, digital recorder and a yellow post-it onto the table when held upside down. The post-it read in Landshuth's scrawl:

"Byer doesn't know about this. Give it to Aaron when he's ready. Turn off your phone until your vacation is over."

Peterson reached down and switched off his cell phone. The cleaners wouldn't call ahead anyways.

There were three cars parked outside the training facility. The driver smiled at Aaron as he climbed out. "I'll take care of the bag. Nice meeting you."

"Thanks for the ride," Aaron said, mimicking his social interaction therapist. He walked away from the things that weren't his, feeling the smooth cover of the book molding to his back and the MP3 player in his boot. 

The Rasar was waiting in the lobby. She was wearing a slick, black backpack Aaron had never seen before. A second pack sat at her feet. "You did well," she informed Aaron with a small smile. "We're going out. Grab your pack."

A shock of adrenaline ran up Aaron's spine. He'd done well if there was already another mission. He grabbed the pack out of the air when she tossed it to him, buckling the straps around himself. "Who's briefing us?" he asked, glancing at the cars.

"I'm doing it on the go. Our vehicle is out back. Let's move," the Rasar ordered, taking off at a fast walk.  
Aaron broke into a trot to keep up. "What did you need to tell me from before?"

"In the car, Aaron," the Rasar replied evenly. Her strides made something in her backpack clatter and click. Several people were walking through the concrete-floored main hallways. The Rasar avoided those in favor of various interconnected rooms and small, sheet metal side passages on the outside of the building. One of those set of feet had to belong to a VIP who was too important to risk exposing to Aaron.

The passage to the back parking lot and outdoor training area was much longer without the use of the main hallways. Aaron and the Rasar exited through a small side-door onto the concrete pad where a non-descript SUV was parked. Byer leaned against the side of the vehicle. Two men stood nearby in plain clothes, but that didn't hide the way their jackets didn't quite cover all the straps of gun holsters. 

Aaron tensed. "Go inside," the Rasar ordered, anger crackling through her voice. "Now, Aaron."

"He should stay," Byer said in a tone so cold even Aaron flinched backwards. "Who's Joshua?"  
The Rasar's eyes were glassy as she looked at Byer. "Aaron…"

"Just stay there for a moment, Aaron," Byer ordered, straightening up from his slouch. "Did you really think you could walk out of here with my project, and I wouldn't notice? You're good. I'll give you that. I only found out last night." He held up a USB drive, cheap, silver, and with NRAG printed on it. "I'm not going to let you hurt Aaron."

"That is not mine," the Rasar said so softly it never reached Byer. Her voice was barely audible to Aaron over the wind. "I wouldn't hurt him." Her head shook slightly back and forth in denial.  
Aaron's stomach dropped. He didn't really want to believe what the situation implied. His orders were to stand though. So he could just do nothing.

"Arrest her," Byer ordered the two strangers. "Watch out. She worked as a trainer for Shayetet 13 in her heyday."

"Aaron," the Rasar said softly. "Don't. Move." She pulled the straps of her backpack free, letting it drop to the ground. The plastic clatter was even more distinct. One of the strangers drew a taser. They wanted her alive. The Rasar started walking forward in slow measured steps. The fact no one shot her then told Aaron they really had no idea what they were dealing with. He could see Byer's mouth moving to warn them.

Then the taser went off, and Aaron dropped to the ground, unstrapping the backpack, because he wasn't an idiot anymore.

The prongs of the taser whipped towards where the Rasar had been. She was older than the two men sent to bring her in, but she knew what they were thinking before they even realized that was their plan. Krav Maga was the backbone of the IDF's hand-to-hand program. Esther Landshuth had helped develop the latest incarnation used by Israeli special forces back when her knees didn't ache every morning. She hit the two LINE combat system trained ex-marines like a force of nature.

The goal of Krav Maga is to disarm your opponent and use that weapon to kill them however you can. Byer's men had guns in their holsters. Landshuth managed to clear a gun and get a shot off. It made her first opponent reel backwards as the bullet tore through his side. She had to release the weapon when the second man grabbed her arm with the intention of breaking it. Her boot smashed into his knee. So that, when he crumpled, his temple would collide with the elbow she was bringing up. It dazed him enough she could engage his wounded partner, striking at the injured man's throat and face in an effort to put him out of the fight permanently.

The man on the ground grabbed his partner's weapon. He put a bullet through Landshuth's lower back at an angle. She screamed in Hebrew, spitting in the wounded man's face. It distracted him enough she managed to take out both of his eyes. Spinning around, she grabbed the downed man's hand, gun and all, hyper-extended his arm, nails digging into the pressure point, away from her and kicked him in the head. The toe of her boot caved in the thin, already bruised bone of his temple. He didn't move when she ripped the gun from his hand and let him drop. A bullet to the head put the blinded man out of his misery.

Breathing hard, Landshuth looked down at her khaki jacket. It was red, but more importantly black, stagnant blood leaked down the back and side of her thigh. She was gut shot. The ripping agony would hit soon, and she'd be useless then dead. The only reason it hadn't already put her down on the ground was the flood of adrenaline from the fight and shock. She smiled and looked up at Byer after checking that Aaron still had his head safely down even if he was snaking towards them. Byer looked furious, but his eyes were sparkling. "Burn in hell," Landshuth hissed, raising the gun.

The shot went wild as Aaron hit her from the side. She blocked his strike to the side of her throat. Aaron, a dedicated student, was going for her weapon. So she let him have it before he could break her fingers getting it, smashing her forehead into his nose while he fumbled for the gun. While he tried to grasp the grip of the pistol, she dug her fingers into the tendons of his wrist and levered him away, keeping the other hand re-directing the weapon. His knee came up and thumped into the muscles of her buttocks as she twisted to block. It was meant as a distraction for the hand coming up towards her face, meaning to pull her in by the neck and restrain her or break her spine. She grasped his elbow to re-direct the grab, spinning in his arms to deliver a back-kick.

Then Aaron pushed the muzzle into the base of her spine with a sudden burst of strength to break her grip. Landshuth tipped her head back against his shoulder. She hadn't actually been fully convinced that he would go through with it given the opportunity. She'd bet and lost. Aaron emptied three rounds into her, tilting the gun so the two that went all the way through hit the dirt. When he stepped back, Landshuth didn't have it in her to stay standing. Her face scraped against the pavement. The air stank with the wet odor of bile. There was a bullet in her stomach. Pressing her hands into where most of the blood was coming from, she rolled and snapped a weak kick at Aaron's knee. He stepped back, avoiding contact completely.

"You fucking bastard," she moaned, tipping her head to glare at Byer. "When I see you in hell, I'm going to cut you open and turn your guts into jewelry." The pain hit like a tidal wave making her vision dance black. She screamed. "Don't make him. Don't, please. Don't hurt my boy."

Distantly, through the black edging across her vision she saw Aaron raise the gun. Byer's voice said, "Aaron..." As Aaron squeezed the trigger, white faced and not even aware he was crying, Landshuth realized she'd been screaming in Hebrew. Neither man had known what she was saying.

Aaron stared down at the puddle of blood and brain matter leaking out of the side of the Rasar's head. His bullet hadn't been dead-center with the head twisted towards Byer. He'd blown off part of her skull. Blood ran down what was left of her face, sheening dark eyes that had him convinced she'd been beautiful when she was younger, before life made her hard. A harsh, rattling breath parted her lips, which twitched as if she were trying to speak, as her brainstem fought valiantly to keep her alive just a little longer. Aaron wasn't sure if he was hallucinating the sound that came with it.

"Yakiri…"

"Rasar," Aaron said feeling his chest heave as he dropped to his knees in the blood. He safed the gun and set it on the ground. "Rasar?" It was like he was looking down at himself as he reached out with trembling fingers to smooth the hot, slimy pieces of flesh out of her hair. "The exercise is over now, right? Get up." The words were stupid. Aaron knew he'd killed her. He'd done this enough times before he was Aaron to be sure. But that had been different. He'd seen the spray of blood and flesh when he'd made distance shots. Firefights didn't leave a whole lot of time for watching your enemy die. Most the time, you didn't have any idea what killed them until daylight. He'd shot the Rasar in the back at such a close range the blow back had turned his shirt red and made it stick wetly to his chest. It felt cold even though it had been so hot at first.

"Aaron," Byer's voice had gotten a lot closer suddenly. "Aaron, look at me."

Aaron looked up, feeling nothing like Aaron and everything like Kenneth. "She's dead," he felt his mouth say. "Sir, she's dead. I… I didn't mean…"

Byer's face became strangely sad. "Oh, Aaron, I know you didn't want to, but you had to." He stood by Aaron's side, smoothing his hand over Aaron's head and shoulders.

"Get up!" Aaron exploded suddenly, pushing the Rasar's body. "Get up!" The force left her body askew with more pieces of bone and flesh smearing across the concrete with the blood. He was bawling now, hitting and shoving her with tears clouding his vision and salty snot in his mouth. She'd never permit him to lose it like this, let alone land a blow outside of training. He half expected one of those deceptively meaty arms to come up and sweep his hands away before landing a punch that would send him sprawling. But the Rasar remained still and limp. So Aaron had to keep breathing even though the air felt like ground up glass in his throat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem is At the Door of a Lonely Heart by Abboud al Jabiri. If you can find a translation of any of his stuff, it's good. If you can find someone who speaks the language to read it and then translate it to you, it's even better. The translation I used can be found at: http://www.poetrytranslation.org/poem/277/At_the_Door_of_a_Lonely_Heart.
> 
> Oscar Mike means on the move. In this case, it's Peterson's marine background talking.
> 
> Shayetet 13 is the division of the Israeli special forces most equivalent to Navy SEALs.
> 
> Finally, the most literal translation of 'yakiri', which is Hebrew, is 'my dear one'.


	11. The Kindest Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed thoughtfully by Julorean. All remaining mistakes are on me.

It was painful to hear the childish shriek in Aaron's demands as he splattered the mess everywhere trying to reanimate the corpse. Byer grimaced at the bits of blood and other things that landed on his pants and shoes. He gave Aaron a few minutes to work out the worst of the tears and aggression on Landshuth's body. Unlike Byer, she wouldn't mind the bruises.

When Aaron had wound down to just crying silently and staring (less than a minute, too well trained for extended hysterics), Byer said firmly, "Let's go inside." He stuck a hand underneath one of Aaron's arms and gave a hard pull to get the point across. Aaron stumbled up, grabbing the gun. He listed into Byer's chest. Byer wrote off the entire outfit. Between the blood transfer and the splatter, he'd never be able to get the stains out. Aaron's arm went over his shoulder in the walking wounded position.

"Gonna be sick," Aaron moaned, before leaning to the side and throwing up something that looked distinctly like partially digested oatmeal, fruit pieces still mostly whole, and coffee. Byer swallowed hard, pulling his mouth into a parody of smile to keep his own nausea down.

The remaining security team met him at the door. Byer ordered Aaron to stand down before they approached. Mandy's hand-picked man carefully cradled a syringe in his palm. "Aaron," Byer said gently, shifting so that he was between Aaron and the other men. "Bobby Lee is going to dose you now. Just until we can figure out what's going on."

Aaron just nodded, his throat too raw from screaming and vomiting in short order to feel like talking. Bobby Lee was a big, dark haired man in a tac vest who's voice drawled like molasses when he said, "Easy, boy. This may hurt a bit, but then ain't nothin' gonna hurt at all."

Aaron snarled at him like a rabid dog. Byer knotted his fingers in Aaron's short hair, forcing Aaron's head to the side. Bobby Lee quickly swiped the exposed skin on Aaron's neck with an alcohol wipe before popping the plastic cap on the syringe. "You got him, sir? Don't feel like havin' my head torn off."

"He's secure," Byer snapped. "Right, Aaron?" He shook Aaron's head hard with his handful of hair as the grip. Aaron's eyes teared up involuntarily but he mumbled assent. "Do it," Byer ordered with a snarl of his own.

Bobby Lee winced as he pressed the syringe into Aaron's neck and emptied the clear liquid into the veins and muscles. Aaron stayed still through the push of the needle. His breath stuttered as the first wave of dizziness hit. "I need a man on either side of him," Byer ordered as muscle spasms signaled the sedative's effectiveness. "He's about to drop."

Two of the bulky security men grabbed Aaron's arms. Aaron was still aware enough to struggle until Byer put a hand on his cheek and shushed him into unconsciousness. "Put him somewhere warm for now. The doc'll need to see him. Leave him in recovery position. The drugs make him sick sometimes. Grab a blood sample while you’re at it."  
Bobby Lee nodded, hefting Aaron with his partner. "Yes, sir. I'll see to it. Building looks clear. AD Mandy is waiting for you in the conference room."

Byer nodded sharply and turned to the remaining men to bark out orders.

Bobby Lee and Jack made it down the hall before Bobby Lee broke. "Cold asshole."

Jack snorted. "The /Captain/ takes orders from the man. What did you expect?" Jack's accent was thick and east coast. It was a contrast the two old friends were used to startling people with.

"We oughtta get the poor bastard washed up at least," Bobby Lee pointed out. "Wakin' up after sickin' over everything and covered in blood is gonna be hell of a nasty surprise."

With a put upon sign, Jack nodded, "Fine. That marshmallow heart of yours is gonna get us into shit one of these days, Bobby Lee."

"You say that every goddamn time, but it's your pale mick ass I keep havin' ta save," Bobby Lee replied amiably. "There's a bathroom 'round here somewhere we can use. If a doc is gonna look in on him we can just put him in the infirmary. There oughtta be blankets and shit there."

"Should be," Jack agreed, detouring their awkward, six legged race into a washroom. "You want me to hold him up?"  
"Naw," Bobby Lee shrugged, "Put him on the floor next to the drain. It'll take care of the mess if he gets sick again."

They propped Aaron on his side with his face next to the drain. Jack got to work cutting off the bloody shirt. "Hey,  
Bobby Lee, he's got a book in his waistband!"

Bobby Lee turned from the paper towel dispenser. "What kind of book?"

Jack flipped through sweat-soft pages. It had mostly escaped the blood. Only a corner was stained. "It's in Arabic. Why the hell would he have this?"

"Who the hell knows? Put it to the side for now." Bobby Lee soaked a handful of paper towels in the lukewarm water from the sink. The cheap fibers shredded easily when he divided the lump into two and handed half to Jack, who had put the book on a dry sink to keep it safe. They mopped at the worst of the blood, looking for injuries as they went.

"I'd hate us for doing this if it was me," Jack muttered, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn, partially dried pool on Aaron's stomach. "I mean, this is just creepy."

"He ain't us," Bobby Lee pointed out, cleaning Aaron's hands. The blood under the nails wasn't going anywhere, but at least it wasn't caked on anymore. "None of these project boys are quite right after a bit. They handled all the old ones under sedation all the time, 'member? This new model seems a mite friendlier than that. But he's still probably used to it."

"Yeah," Jack considered. "I guess so. Doesn't mean I don't feel like a pervert."

Bobby Lee snorted. "Son, you're a navy boy. You've always been a pervert." He finished with Aaron's hands and back. "Maybe if we get him kneelin' up it'll keep 'im from choking when we rinse his mouth."

"Sounds like a plan." Jack and Bobby Lee ended up propping Aaron on his knees with Jack wedged partially beneath to keep him up. "We aren't gonna take off his pants and make this as bad as it can get?" Jack demanded as Bobby Lee awkwardly held Aaron's jaw open to check if his mouth was clean.

"You offerin'?" Bobby Lee demanded, washing his hands before running his fingers along the inside of Aaron's lips to get rid of the lingering chunks. "Sorry, boy," he said quietly as he rinsed his hand. "I know this can't feel real good."

"And we haven't even waterboarded him yet," Jack growled. "Get it over with. I hate this part."

"He ain't gonna remember," Bobby Lee sighed. "And he'll feel better for it." He and Jack got Aaron to his feet and dragged him over to the sink. Jack held Aaron in place while Bobby Lee poured palmfuls of water into Aaron's mouth then tipped his head so it dribbled out. He stopped when the water ran clear. "Done. Let's get him to a bed to sleep it off."

"Thank God," Jack muttered. "He's fucking heavy. What do they give these guys? They weigh twice as much as you'd expect." 

"You don't really wanna know," Bobby Lee replied, helping Jack sling Aaron between them in the human crutch position. "Don't forget his book."

Jack grabbed the book and stuffed it in the thigh pocket of his pants. "We're good. Let's move him." They started down the hall again towards where the layouts they'd studied showed a small infirmary.

The room used to treat Aaron on-site was really nothing more than a closet-sized office with a sturdy-looking gurney in the center and plastic cabinets full of medical supplies along the wall. The gurney was bolted to the floor as a precaution. Beneath it dangled leather medical restraints neatly tied up and out of the way. Bobby Lee and Jack rolled Aaron onto the gurney, then pushed him into the recovery position. Jack dug through the cabinets looking for blankets while Bobby Lee unlaced Aaron's boots.

Bobby Lee found the MP3 player, screen crushed, and put it with the book on the tool tray next to the bed. Jack had unearthed a stack of thick, gray wool blankets, standard army issue. They unwound the restraints and strapped Aaron in, adjusting the lengths so he would be comfortable on his side. Assets tended to wakeup violently. Jack tucked the blanket around the unconscious man from his feet shoulder, making sure to leave his face clear, while Bobby Lee took the blood sample.

"Poor bastard," Jack echoed as they finished up, putting the sample in the small fridge. Bobby Lee just nodded gravely as he switched off the lights and closed the door.

"What the hell was that!" Mandy all but shrieked as she paced the length of the conference table. "You said you had a plan, Rick. That was not a plan, that was a terrible fucking idea."

Byer rubbed his temples and snapped, "Not so loud, Dita. I already have a headache. I underestimated Landshuth and overestimated your men. But I was dead-on about Aaron."

Mandy turned towards the table where the contents of the two backpacks had been spread out. Aaron's had contained just the basics: two changes of civilian clothing, two metal water bottles, power bars, MRES, a basic first aid kit, and a Glock 17 with two spare clips and a box of bullets. There was two thousand American dollars sewn into the lining of an outer-pocket. It was a bug-out bag, nothing more.

It was Landshuth's pack that was terrifying. Of course, the essentials were included, but, somehow, Landshuth had gotten her hands on at least six months worth of chems as well as the fresh kit that Aaron was issued to replenish his supply for the week. The blues and greens were separated into two orange pharmacy bottles. Along with a complete sedation kit and several pre-loaded syringes labeled in Hebrew with masking tape tags. Her laptop would have to go to specialists. It wasn't the one Landshuth had used in the facility. Mandy suspected it was an encrypted, clean one Landshuth had only used on the outside, and it was booby-trapped. There were two wallets in the side pocket. One was made out to June Munroe and had Landshuth's face and handwriting on the driver's license. The other she must have made for Aaron in the name James Munroe. Sewn into the lining next to the cash were two Israeli passports in the names Haddassah Levi and Aaron Levi.

Mandy picked up the driver's license with Aaron's face on it. "How the hell did she get this, Rick? She was under twenty-four hour surveillance."

"Best guess, Joshua," Byer said tightly. "I found a bible in her quarters when I was trying to plant the USB drive. I got a little curious about what a lapsed Jew was doing with a King James. So I went back and looked at the logs for every time she'd been out in the last six months. Twice, when she's had coffee at the Starbucks downtown, she's been harassed by an Anglican priest named Joshua Jacob Early, known as Father Jacob, looking converts."

"So, he thinks he's a Mormon," Mandy said flatly. "Get to the point."

"Joshua Jacob Early isn't actually a priest. It took me awhile to recognize him. Mostly because last time anyone saw him, he was clutching his chest and falling down." Byer dug into the briefcase he'd left in the conference room and pulled out a series of photographs of Landshuth and a man in a white collar. "That's Raymond fucking Doyle, former head of black ops at CI-5. Supposedly retired back in the nineties when his heart started acting up. His former partner, W.A.P. Bodie, retired as director not two years ago in favor of that new kid Keel, who should be one of ours, ex-Navy SEAL, except that he went and married James fucking Bond. Sam Curtis, former MI-6, is suspected to hold Doyle's old position. Keel surrendered his American citizenship about the time Doyle vanished into the 'private life'." 

Byer flung the pictures at Mandy so she could see that the old priest's cheek was shattered and poorly healed in the same place as the man labeled 'Ray Doyle' in the official CI-5 historical photo. "CI-5 has been after Mossad for help taking down Syrian arms smugglers bringing in weapons to the Russian mafia in London for the past eighteen months. Rumor has it, Mossad has someone deep-cover in the Syrians' organization, and CI-5 wants access to the info. The only people with enough currency to get Mossad's attention would be Bodie and Doyle. The new kids don't have the pull."

"Israel sold Landshuth down the river a long time ago," Mandy pointed out. "Why would they want her back now?" She frowned, flipping through the stack of surveillance images.

Byer shrugged. "Hell if I know. Best guess, the bitch managed to get them information about Outcome. Aaron was her ticket home. Either way, they were using CI-5 as the point of contact. Landshuth knew she was under surveillance. No way in hell was Mossad or any other friendly organization getting within twenty feet of her. A crazy, British priest? No one gave a shit."

Mandy sighed, "I'll send someone after Doyle."

"Too late. I had a tac team hit the apartment he was renting. Fucker's long gone. He pulled up stakes last week. Based on the vehicle Landshuth had out back, they were going to meet up with him, get British passports, fly to London, and use the Israeli passports to get back home. At least, that's what I'd do to avoid us." Byer slammed his hand into the table. "Shit. This is why I fucking hate intelligence work."

Mandy snorted. "You'd be bored otherwise, Rick. Though, next time I would appreciate if you could fill me in before bullets start flying." She rifled through the photos again. "I just can't believe we didn't notice. Where did she get Israeli passports?"

"No clue. I need you to figure out who was issuing those pills, Dita," Byer picked up the container, twisting it around, making the pills clack against the plastic. "We've got a serious security problem here. And don't say I told you so. Landshuth wasn't working alone. We've been too lax about letting the trainers handle the chems."

"I wasn't going to," Mandy sighed, sitting down next to Byer. She waved a hand, dismissing everyone else from the room. The last man out shut the door. "You asshole. I thought I was going to find your body in that parking lot." She reached out and punched him in the shoulder hard enough to bruise.

"I had Aaron, Dita," Byer pointed out wearily. "He didn't hesitate when I became Landshuth's target. It's exactly what we wanted. We finally have handler-stable assets and a lead on our possible security risks at the lab."

"Aaron is a barely trained attack dog running on instinctive affections because he doesn't have anything else," Mandy replied, shaking her head. "You couldn't know which way he would land."

"He's in love with me," Byer said calmly. Mandy made a sound like a dying cat. "About three months ago , when we were up at the cabin running the tolerance tests to see if the PTSD treatments were working, he kissed me. Not a fucking clue how to do it right, but he was trying."

Mandy leaned on the table, resisting the urge to bang her head on the metal. "Jesus Christ. Rick, what did…"

Byer shook his head. "Nothing happened. I told him the truth. No fraternization, period. But it stands. I knew he wouldn't let anything happen to me. I wasn't going in blind. Now, will you stop trying to kill me with your eyes?" 

"I'll take the laptop to our friends at the NSA," Many said, not actually throwing her hands up in the air, but implying it with her tone. "They'll be able to crack it and tell us what Landshuth was up to. My men will clear out her quarters and take everything somewhere secure for us to go over."

"Have Aaron transported to the clinic for a full work up while he's down. We'll send him out into the field as soon as he wakes up. The elimination in Columbia I think. That'll give us time to come up with a story that paints us in the best light and fabricate the evidence to support it. Do we have a handler?" Byer asked, tapping his fingers against the table as he thought.

"We can send him in with Turso's Treadstone asset. Treadstone Two's handler can manage Aaron well enough. I'll arrange it," Mandy said, grunting and pushing on the arms of her chair to stand. Byer stood and gripped her elbow to pull her up. Her back had never been the same since she'd been caught at the very edge of a mortar going off running towards Byer's tent to wake him. Through she'd avoided most of the shrapnel, Byer still had nightmares about watching her body, so small in fatigues meant for a man, being tossed through the air into a ditch of barbed wire and rocks. The scars had been mostly cosmetic and centered on the lower left side and back of her body. But the impact had fractured several of her vertebrae. Hairline cracks that the medic hadn't seen with all the blood and twisted wire. By the time Byer had realized why she needed help getting out of her bunk each day, the damage was done. She had let him use his family's money to buy her experts and surgery that left her in more pain but was effective enough. It let her stand straight and get up without assistance most mornings. On long days, it wasn't enough.

"You know, I gave you free run of the level five security personnel so you didn't have to play Rambo," he pointed out, pulling away as soon as she was steady. She gave him the familiar glare that suggested she knew he was smart despite his insistence on being idiotic. "Take some narcotics tonight at least. Or Vendel and Ingram will be too scared to speak to you tomorrow."

"I'll consider it, Colonel," Mandy replied crisply. "If you'll excuse me, I need to start organizing this circus of yours."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bible actually comes from a story about a Cold War double agent being caught out by his paranoid, American handler I heard from a history teacher once upon a time. I liked the idea of Landshuth and Byer trapped in a Cold War.
> 
> Also, if you can tell me the connection between Landshuth and her fake passport (without the internet, honor system here) I'll write you a drabble of your choice. (This is mostly to see if anyone else got the joke.)


	12. What You Need

Byer threaded his fingers through Aaron's hair as the doctor pushed the counter-agent for the sedative mix through the IV port taped to Aaron's collarbone. The doctor gave him a nervous look as she finished by removing the IV and taping a gauze pad over the wound. "He'll start waking up in a few minutes. He'll still feel a little… dopey, but he should be able to walk around within the next two hours."

"Thank you, doctor. We'll take it from here," Byer said dismissively. The doctor nodded in relief, having no desire to be in the same room as a disoriented asset. She collected her kit and scurried through the door past Bobby Lee and Jack.

Aaron shifted in his restraints, rolling his head and mumbling until Byer's fingers jerked against his hair. "Get Plan B ready," Byer ordered Bobby Lee as he smoothed his hand over Aaron's forehead to soothe him.

Bobby Lee uncapped a syringe full of thorazine. There was a significant chance that they'd be picking Byer's teeth up off the floor if Aaron reacted badly to waking. Considering how he'd been put down, Bobby Lee wasn't sure there was a person in the world, other than a dead woman, that could keep him calm. Jack tensed, pulling out his taser in preparation.

A soft moan drifted through the tense atmosphere followed by clicking metal as Aaron tried to shift onto his side. "Shh," Byer said quietly. "Easy, Aaron. It's just me. Deep breaths." He slide his hand down to rub slow circles on Aaron's stomach. The movements seemed to calm Aaron for a few more minutes. The restlessness reverted back into the more natural movements of someone easing into a natural sleep. Bobby Lee recapped the syringe and tucked it away.

Then Aaron went still for a split second. "Oh shit," Jack gasped as Aaron surged up off the bed. There was a clattering pop as he pulled one of the restraints apart from its mooring on the gurney. Pale eyes, more white than blue in that moment, landed on Jack. Bobby Lee darted forward, fumbling to sedate Aaron before he could hurt someone.

"No," Byer barked, throwing himself on top of Aaron. "Aaron, look at me!" He gripped the bed frame, pressing Aaron's straining body down into the mattress to prevent any more of the restraints giving way. "Easy, soldier. Easy."

"Bobby Lee," Jack said quietly. "I'd back off, now." Jack took a careful step back to test his theory. Aaron settled a little as Bobby Lee took a step back as well, mirroring Jack's actions without looking, unconsciously aware of his partner of ten years.

Byer pressed his mouth to Aaron's temple, blowing out air in a deep relaxation breathing pattern. As Jack and Bobby Lee backed away, Aaron relaxed into Byer. He reflexively mimicked Byer's breathing. Byer pressed a smile into Aaron's hair. Mirroring worked best with close contact and intense emotional connections. They laid there for several minutes until Aaron asked "Sir?" his voice gravelly. "Sir, was that an exercise?"

"No, Aaron. Your Rasar is dead," Byer said, pushing himself off the bed. "We've cleared you though. You're no longer under isolation procedures. The doctor just woke you up from long-term sedation. Do you remember our last conversation?" He freed Aaron with one hand, pushing down on Aaron's shoulder with the other to keep him still.

"Yeah," Aaron rasped. "Yeah, iso cell or sedation until you got it sorted. Thank you." He sat up, groaning at the creak of joints and tendons. His body felt mushy despite the hours of physical therapy each day done by the nurses. Probably a side-effect of whatever medical testing had been done while he was under. It was still preferable to losing time in a isolation cell with gray walls and fluorescent lighting while conscious. The sedation hadn't been heavy enough to keep out the white noise and careful touches of the medical staff or the radio crooning in the background. It was a vacation compared to Aaron's days in the iso cells in Maryland.

Byer helped him sit up, handing over a cup of ice chips. Aaron took a mouthful and waited for them to melt. He sucked the water down his dry throat with a contented sigh. "Why?" he asked after he finished the first mouthful.

Shaking his head, Byer tipped the cup back up to encourage Aaron to have more ice. "We don't know yet, Aaron. We focused on getting you cleared first. Have some more ice. You've got two days recovery before you're onto Colombia. Jack and Bobby Lee are going to be working with you until then."

"Peterson?" Aaron croaked in between crunching ice pieces. He listed a little as his tried to focus on the two security men.

Byer leaned against gurney so Aaron would have something solid to prop himself against. "Peterson hasn't been cleared yet. I'll find you someone else by the time you get back if he isn't, Aaron. You want to walk off the rest of the drugs?"

Aaron nodded, downing the last of the ice. "Yeah. 'm gonna need help. Dizzy as fuck."

"Bobby Lee, Jack," Byer ordered, "help Aaron up. Walk him around until he's steady. Then take him to his room."

"I've slept for a long time," Aaron said crossly as he slide off the gurney. "I need to move."

Byer shook his head, stepping aside to let Bobby Lee and Jack take Aaron's elbows. "It was a drugged sleep. You'll spend the rest of the day sleeping once you've loosened up. That's an order."

Aaron stumbled, his legs buckling at the knee. Bobby Lee and Jack held up him until he managed to get his feet back under him. "Yes, sir," he said morosely. His steps forward were as uncertain and delicate as a newborn animal's. Bobby Lee and Jack shuffled forward to match his pace. "Will you be briefing me on the mission, sir?"

"I've got business in South Carolina," Byer said simply. "I'll see you when you get back." He ruffled Aaron's hair before he left.

Aaron watched Byer go with an inscrutable expression. He kept sagging against the hands helping him as he legs gave way. "Yes, sir," he said as the door closed behind Byer, voice soft and empty. Putting one bare foot firmly on the cold, concrete floor , Aaron pushed himself up to his full height. "Come on, gentlemen," he said grimly, "I need a set of working legs in two days, and you're the only help I'm getting."

Bobby Lee glanced at Jack, who shrugged his free shoulder. "Take it easy, boy," Bobby Lee sighed. "We'll get you walkin'." He gave a loaded frown to Jack and started taking larger steps forward. Aaron knotted his fingers in the sleeves of their jackets to support himself and matched each stride. He didn't let his gaze linger on the broken MP3 player or blood stained book on one of the steel rolling tables pushed against the wall. Instead, he stared towards the door like a wild thing planning how to escape it's cage.

After midnight, when Bobby Lee checked the cameras in Aaron's quarters, he wasn't surprised to see a light still on. Aaron had disassembled some of the MP3 player and was examining the broken screen. No doubt to see if he could scrounge parts for it. It wasn't an expensive piece of equipment, thirty or so American dollars. Bobby Lee knew it was too cheap to be fixed. The same conclusion Aaron would no doubt come to once his fingers stopped trembling. At least the book was salvageable. Jack sighed softly and murmured, "Poor kid." Bobby Lee nodded, turning off the visual feed. It would be recorded, but no one would be watching Aaron tonight. He could mourn with some semblance of privacy.

Jack passed Bobby the silver flask from his hip pocket. "You ever wish we said no?" he asked wearily, staring at the now black screen.

"Every day," Bobby Lee replied sadly. "But better us then some fucking sadist that rather poke'em with sticks then take care of 'em. Christ knows they take enough shit in the field without getting any at the kennels." He took a long swig from the flask. "I don't like what they did either, Jack."

Nodding, Jack took his flask back and swallowed a mouthful of his own, considering the engraving on the side of the flask. "Doesn't hurt the money's good."

"No," Bobby Lee agreed, "the perks really don't hurt." He rested a reassuring hand on Jack's shoulder. "Not at all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed transition scene. I still haven't settled on what'll happen in Colombia. So there's probably going to be a long delay then three chapters at once.


	13. What Memories Can Bring

Aaron let out a long, satisfying string of Pashto as the tiny pieces of plastic slipped through his clumsy fingers. The dental pliers in his other hand rang loudly against the desk as he slammed them down. The words echoed through his quarters back to him. He took a deep breath, then another as that one made his eyes burn. The headache from the last crying jag had barely receded. The whole thing was starting to piss him off. The Rasar had meant to kill Byer, and Aaron had lain there and gaped like a civilian until the last possible second. Aaron had almost gotten Byer killed. Aaron had gotten the Rasar killed.

"Nah," Aaron snarled the accented word to the silent room. He took several more deep breaths. The grinding feeling beneath his breastbone wasn't his. The Rasar had betrayed Outcome, tried to use Aaron against Byer. She was a traitor, and he would kill any number of foreign targets to get her back. "Yawaazeh meh pregda." He tossed the pieces of he'd been trying to reassemble back on the desk and got up to prowl from one side of his room to the other. Byer had left because Aaron had failed. That was how it worked. So long as Aaron was the best, he got Byer. Right now, Aaron was a fucking mess. "So fix it, Cross," he muttered to himself, pulling a flashlight out of his desk. He picked up the dental pliers and stuffed them in his pocket, holding tightly to the body-warm metal. It had been a long time since he'd had to talk himself through something.

Aaron snarled silently and bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying anything else to the cameras. He popped the cover off of the ventilation duct and snaked inside, palming his knife as he crawled past its hiding place. It was hard work, pulling himself along with his hands and pushing with his toes. The aching protests from his muscles were a pleasant distraction from his goal. He needed answers. The Rasar had shown him one stormy night where to get those.

Aaron looked down through the vent into the Rasar's room. The cover had been removed when the room had been searched. The bed with its green cotton sheets sat on the floor, gutted, neatly bagged for disposal. This wasn't a ransack. Everything in the room had been methodically searched, boxed, and removed, leaving only the large pieces of furniture behind. The bed he'd laid on when the thunder sounded like shells was dissembled into neat stacks. The desk where the Rasar had helped him practice his spelling had no drawers left. The mirror was gone along with the single bottle of scented soap the Rasar had kept next to the industrial bars provided by the facility.

Legs still clumsy, Aaron's drop to the floor turned into more of tumble. He managed to land on his feet before rocking back onto his ass. His tailbone wasn't bruised, but it still hurt. Splayed out on the floor, he looked around a room that had always been spartan. Now it felt bare. So empty even the air seemed thinner. Her perfume was gone. He'd loved the antique looking glass bottle that smelled like desert flowers. It was from Israel, had come a long way with her since she barely used it, but the faint smell always lingered in the room from when she uncapped the bottle to let him sniff. The room just smelled like dry concrete now.

Her books, including the Hebrew ones she'd read to him, were missing. Only the dust pattern on the floor showed where her small bookcase had been. Aaron took a deep, desperate breath and tried not to remember how she'd let him lay her few precious pieces of jewelry on the bed and touch them while she told the stories of their origins. Her grandmother's necklace, the one that had survived the Warsaw ghetto uprising, was in a room somewhere to be checked for trace evidence. The rings that had belonged to her grandfather, the two that were left after buying the way to Israel, which she'd slipped on Aaron’s fingers after he'd failed an impossible training exercise, were in a stranger's hands.

His teeth clamped into his tongue as he felt another fucking surge of tears. The Rasar's things weren't his. They'd never been intended for him. But some part of him believed that they were. In the back of his head a voice whispered that the people who stripped the room had been taking what was his without even asking first. Another deep breath and he used his stomach muscles to rock himself back onto the balls of his feet. His core wasn't particularly happy with the move. It did keep him stable enough to make it to his feet without his knees going watery again. 

The camera that covered the front half of the room where the bed and desk were was gone. The wires hung limply from the walls. No doubt it was being checked for tampering before being re-installed. It meant he had until sun up at least. He pulled out the pliers and stood on his toes to reach the cinderblock the Rasar had sealed back into place with toothpaste and mortar seven feet above the floor, just above where her bed had been. The mix looked stiff when it dried, but crumbled to the floor as Aaron raked around the block with his pliers. The material pilled out of the cracks as he scraped. 

When he'd cleared a handhold, he started prying with his fingertips. The Rasar's fingers had been smaller. She'd been able to slot them in and pull in a single movement. Aaron clawed at the edges, moving the block out in small increments until he had enough space to get a firm grip. He lifted the block down to the floor. There was a wooden cigar box in the space between the blocks and the insulation. Aaron took it out of the gap that had been carved in the insulation to make it fit better.

There was no bed to curl on as he examined the contents. He knelt on the floor. The box contained a picture of a maroon sedan with an address on the back. She'd always told him to have an exit strategy. The only other thing in the box was a second photo of a woman with long black hair and eyes just as black smiling at the camera, her free hand tangled with a handsome Israeli man in plain clothes, her other on a CAR-15. The facial features were slightly wrong, sharper cheekbones and a thicker nose balanced out a face that looked even prettier with a merry smile. But the Rasar had told him more than once that she had enemies. Changing your face was a great way to hide. This was her before the world wanted her dead. Aaron turned the picture over. The notation on the back was written in Hebrew in a shaky hand. Beneath it was a lighter.

Aaron smoothed a finger over the Rasar's real face, a familiar smile missing the weight of danger Aaron was used to. He looked back at the address and the picture of the car. He'd bet his favorite rifle that the address was to a long term parking facility. The car would be decked out with IDs, cash, supplies, false plates, and papers. Her exit strategy, or his.

The photograph was nothing that practical. He touched her face, her real face, again. He wondered if the man was her brother or her lover or something else entirely. Even in the picture it was clear there was a gun beneath the man's jacket. It seemed the Rasar had never been just a soldier. Aaron curled his fingers around the edge of the photo and considered ripping it half. He didn't want this. He didn't.

After memorizing the address, Aaron burned the picture of the car and washed the ashes down the sink. It was obvious he was meant to burn the Rasar's photograph well. Instead, he put it back in the box with the lighter. Having it out of sight helped the ball of rage in his throat recede to cramping in his stomach. The cinderblock was a lot heavier going up than coming down. Aaron wedged it into place standing on his toes. He should be more thorough about concealing the loose block, but it suddenly felt like he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. He'd slept almost immediately after he'd been able to walk on his own, the familiar, deep black sleep that hit him after hard training. He'd thought those three hours had been enough after several days of sedated sleep. His body seemed to disagree.

Tucking the box under one arm, Aaron pulled himself back into the ventilation duct one-handed, kicking off the wall to get himself up those few, vital inches that meant he could pull from his chest and stomach rather than shoulder. His cot didn't really appeal. So he crawled ten feet further into the duct, roughly over where the Rasar's bed had been. It probably wouldn't stop the nightmares that had woken him the first time, but no one would ever know he tried.

The metal was cool against his cheek as stretched himself out so his weight would be distributed over several joints and supports. He tucked the box into his chest, curling his arms around it possessively. Before he settled to sleep, he rubbed his cheek against edge of the box like he had against the Rasar's knee when he had nightmares. It left a scrape just beneath his eye. He could feel the blood beading on his skin as he pulled away. The sting gave a reason for a few tears to escape. If Aaron hadn't hesitated, if he'd done what he was trained to and taken the Rasar before she'd put Byer at risk, he had no doubt it wouldn't be a fucking box in his arms. Byer would have stayed. He always made time when Aaron did well. But Aaron hadn't believed her. Not until that last second when she'd checked on him, checked that he was out of the line of fire, before she pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean. All remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> The gist of what Aaron is saying is "Shut up, brain."
> 
> CAR-15s were shipped to Israel during the Yom Kippur War by the US. Landshuth would have been in single digits the first time she saw one. It's only recently the IDF has been phasing out the CAR-15 in favor of the M4 carbine.


	14. Coming into Los Angeles

Aaron hadn't managed to sleep much on the way to Colombia. He'd woken from natural sleep in the ventilation duct, which he'd taken to sleeping in, on the morning of the flight to a headache he just couldn't shake. It was accompanied by lingering nausea that made him consume his daily requirement for nutrition in the form of bland, vanilla flavored shakes. The Rasar's completely uncharacteristic hesitation, her blood on the pavement, still lingered behind his eyes. He relived those precious seconds every time he dreamed. The flood of adrenaline and heavy smack of impacting another body had replaced the smell of burning flesh and the high-pitched ringing of a burst eardrum which were constants in his nightmares. The new nightmares had merged with the high-pitch whine of the airplane's engines and made it impossible to sleep on the flight. Instead he’d wondered about who had packed the shake mix into individual servings, with Peterson still gone, and the odd dullness around the edges of his emotions since he’d woken from sedation.

He ended up waiting at the airport for his temporary handler, watching humanity flow past. Even though it was an international airport, people still glanced twice at his blond hair. To detract from his obviously foreign appearance, he pasted a bland smile on his face and sipped at the shake he'd made in a water bottle. Just another businessman or tourist. Nothing to see here. It was deeply gratifying when he spotted the handler passing him for a second time looking confused.

Aaron chugged the rest of the shake and scooped up his pack. He tossed the empty bottle into the trash can from a few feet further away than he should have. The action caught the attention of the military, clean-cut man in his forties glancing at every white face in the terminal. "You Aaron?" he asked in a gravelly voice.

"Yessir," Aaron said softly, keeping his gaze unfocused and deferential to hide how intently he was taking in any details he could. Byer hadn't given him any names or any background information. Aaron spoke rudimentary Spanish and no more. He didn't know what the mission was or what skill set he was expected to provide - other than that it wasn't translating. His new handler didn't offer any clues, wearing the Bermuda shorts and a short-sleeved button up shirt made of light cotton like every other American ex-pat in the airport. There was a soft paunch around the man's middle, but thick stripes of calluses on his hands marked him as a former field operative.

"Come on. Let's get back to the car before one of the locals jack it, /again/," the handler said with a merry, welcoming smile which didn't reach his eyes. He broke into a stream of inane, babbling small talk as he led the way out to the parking lot. Aaron followed silently. He really didn't have anything to say to the new officer. It wasn't like working with…with Peterson, who knew Aaron and whose reactions were known factors in every situation. This was more like the few times the Rasar had brought in other trainers to do dry runs in public with him. If you kept quiet, you couldn't say anything wrong. Though that was a lesson Aaron brought to the table, along with his eyesight, before Outcome.

The Rasar had shown him part of his file once. They'd assigned numbers to traits, language skills, social interaction, ability to blend, shooting, hand-to-hand...two pages worth. Aaron Cross had a handability rating of 4.7, a nervous tick short of being able to work perfectly for an untrained civilian. Aaron didn't plan on lowering that number now. No matter what he'd just walked away from.

"You can put your pack in the trunk."

Aaron thought about his sample kit and the three pre-loaded syringes in case the dreams got worse. "I'd rather keep it with me," he said, keeping his voice quiet.

The handler gave him an odd look but shrugged. "I don't really care." Aaron climbed into the passenger's seat, holding the pack on his lap. If he hadn't been a trained killer carrying his gear, it would have looked like something completely different as he pressed the canvas against his chest.

The safehouse was outside of the city, a long, winding drive through streets crowded with people and vehicles of every kind. Aaron watched the crowd and kept his replies to the handler's attempts to make small talk polite and short. Eventually, they settled into silence for the rest of the ride to the yellow bungalow with local flora growing wild in the front yard. "Jason is already here," the handler said. "Mission parameters are to keep to first names only for security purposes. You'll be bunking with him. Dinner's at eight. You have any preferences?"

"I'm still on a pre-packaged diet. I just need some produce occasionally and access to potable water," Aaron answered as he closed his car door.

The handler frowned. "They still giving you boys that powder shit? Look, if you want anything besides that, help yourself." He unlocked the fragile looking front door that was covered in faded, peeling red paint. A man about Aaron's size sat in a spindly-looking kitchen chair, leveling a black pistol at the door. "Jason," the handler said coolly, "this is Aaron, your new partner."

Jason lowered the pistol. His expression never wavered from the emotionless tension that made him look numb. Aaron didn't bother smiling at him. Jason was obviously dosed pretty heavily. The look was one Aaron had seen in the mirror before when Peterson went a little too heavy on the suppressants. "Where do I put my bag?" he asked instead.

The handler seemed surprised when Jason spoke up. "We're out back. I'll show you." He stood up abruptly. Aaron twitched a little but noticed that, while Jason was fast, he wasn't Outcome. On his feet, it became apparent Aaron and Jason were about the same height, but Jason was bigger. Maybe big enough to offset the advantage Aaron's chem enhanced speed gave him.

"Thanks," Aaron said quickly to hide the way he was assessing his new 'partner'. Unlike Aaron, Jason's pale skin contrasted sharply with his dark hair. Aaron wondered if his trainer was like the assholes in Maryland. The color Aaron had lost during his period in the infirmary had started to come back the day he'd been cleared. His babysitters had encouraged him to spend the brief recovery period in the sun. Something about it helping the drugs breakdown in his system. Jason led him through a screen door painted the same color as the front door and into the backyard. A small shack sat in the corner of the spacious area. It looked drafty.

Jason pushed aside the plastic sheet that served as a door. "Welcome home, soldier," he said without inflection. "Top bunk's yours."

Aaron's shoulders eased a little at that. He'd liked top bunk since boot camp. It offered a better vantage point for a room and gave the option of escaping towards the roof as well as on the ground. There was a chest at the head and foot of the bunk bed. The one at the head had a book of military history on top of it. So Aaron opened the one at the foot and began to empty his pack. Jason's gaze itched at the place between his shoulders, but he kept his eyes forward, carefully placing changes of clothes and his toiletry kit in the trunk next to his shake powder and sample kit. "Is there a refrigerator here?" he asked, careful not to break the silence too harshly.

"Yep. We've got a small one in the bathroom for water and soda," Jason replied in the monotone that seemed to be his default. "Why?"

"I owe today," Aaron said simply, opening the sample kit. "I need somewhere to store it." He tied off the tourniquet in a single, practiced motion before breaching the sample tube top with the reusable needle cap. Holding the prepped tube between his teeth, he tapped the crook of his elbow several times to make sure the vein was stable. When he was at the facility, he tried to alternate draw sites to avoid collapsed veins and heavy scarring. But the inside of the elbow was still the most practical, as the faint pockmarks there attested to. He used an alcohol wipe from the kit to clean the area before sticking the vein. Blood pumped into the tube for a slow five count. Aaron dropped the wipe over the puncture site and carefully withdrew the needle. He bent his arm to hold the wipe in place and stop the blood from leaking. Putting the sample tube to the side, he flushed the needle with saline from the kit into a tube labeled biohazard. It would hold the contaminated saline for the two weeks he was here, to be disposed of safely later. That freed his hands to apply a dab of the glue-like liquid bandage to close up the hole.

"You have to do that every day?" Jason asked with a distant flicker of interest. He picked up the tube and turned it, holding it up to the sunlight like he could see why Aaron had to give blood samples if he looked hard enough.

Aaron carefully stowed his kit. "Yeah. Do you mind sticking that in the fridge?" Jason stepped through the door frame, there wasn't even a blanket to separate the rooms, into the bathroom and opened up the mini-fridge. He cleared the top shelf of cans of soda and bottles of juice to make room for the samples. He pulled a bottle of orange juice and took it back with him to hand to Aaron.

"Here. You should drink this." Jason extended the opened bottle to Aaron as Aaron knelt down on the floor to lock his chest.

Aaron took it and sipped cautiously. "It's not that much blood, but thanks." He stood and walked around the small, barren room. Jason had a second thick book on the narcotics trade in South America. Those two books were the only things that weren't program issue. Aaron thought longingly of his own book, hidden safely in a drain with the intake long concreted over in the Rasar’s wooden box next to the broken MP3 player, photograph, and the two wallets he'd stolen from the conference room right before he’d left. He'd only meant to take the driver's license with the Rasar's picture to compare to the old photograph. His fingers had been too clumsy to pull it from the plastic. So he'd grabbed and run back into the ventilation ducts. He hadn't looked at the brown leather men's wallet that had been tangled with it.

"I always work alone," Jason said abruptly. "I wasn't told I would have a partner."

Aaron shrugged. "I just go where I'm sent and do what I'm told. I wasn't even briefed on what my role is."

Jason frowned, or maybe scowling was his default expression. "Well, it'll be easier with two men. There's a chance someone else has a dog in our fight. They told me you specialize in long range eliminations?"

"Yeah, I'm a sharpshooter mostly, but I got the standard sniper course as well," Aaron answered, pulling himself onto his bunk. "They recruited me because I can shoot. Didn't have much else going for me then."

The wording made Jason nod. Programs, it was implied from beginning, wanted the best of the best. To be recruited for a skill in spite of any other faults was indicative. "You good with paper briefings?"

"I do better with pictures," Aaron shrugged. "Lay it out for me."

"Arturo Vila Lobos, drug kingpin, arms dealer, and involved in human trafficking. He's also got stage two, possibly stage three, pancreatic cancer. He's been in chemo for the past year. The Colombians took it as a sign of weakness and moved in to skim off his routes in the US and Mexico. He came personally to re-negotiate their deal. We're here to make sure that doesn't happen." Jason picked up a brown file folder and withdrew surveillance photos. "I've been tailing him on and off for the past two days. Tomorrow, we can work out a rotation and get better coverage. How's your Spanish?"

Aaron snorted. "Basic. I've never had any reason to use it. I understand better than I speak it."

"Well, keep your mouth shut and observe. You'll pick it up," Jason shrugged. "We're not regimented here. I usually get up early for a run and some PT. Fred makes the food. We just show up and eat. All external intel comes through him. You need something, put in a request. He's been pretty good with the turn-around. The bunkhouse is ours. There's a gate out back to a blind alley. Let Fred know if you're going to be in the house. He doesn't like us, even if he's good at hiding it. So stay out of his space if you don't need something."

"Thanks for the heads up," Aaron said, flopping back onto the thin mattress. He was torn between trying to sleep again and going for a run.

Jason leaned on the bunk rail to get the remaining few inches he needed to look at Aaron. "You'll never readjust if you sleep now. Come on. Grab your kit. We're going for a run."

With a sigh, Aaron rolled off this bunk and landed in a crouch. "We going armed?" He stripped off his shirt and considered removing his boots. However, off the trails Peterson maintained it was asking for a slashed up foot and infection.

"No point." Jason tied on his own boots. "You're going to get sunburned."

Aaron shrugged. "I don't burn. Lead the way."

Jason moved at a smooth, slow pace to warm them up as they jogged through the yard and down the alley to the street. After about five minutes of running along the dirt road with tidy houses lining the sides, he turned off onto a trail and picked up speed. Aaron matched him stride for stride. The trail was rough with rocks everywhere and roots sticking out to trip them. It took as much energy to keep their footing as it did to run. On a whim Aaron called out, "from behind." He took a several long strides before pushing off Jason's shoulder to get a handhold on a thick tree branch.

"What are you planning on doing up there?" Jason asked mildly, seeming slightly on edge from being used as a springboard.  
Aaron grinned. "Keeping up." He gathered himself and leapt into the next tree, swinging and wrapping his legs around a branch to catch himself. A laugh escaped him with the impact.  
Jason, jogging beneath him looked up. "Having fun?"

"Hell yeah," Aaron replied cheerfully, throwing himself into the next set of branches. He used his whole body to move, hanging from his legs as much as his hands, moving his body from his core to find the best angle to make each new handhold. He found himself panting even as Jason pounded the dirt beneath him like a machine. It felt good to move. Sweat slicked his hands and torso, making it harder to cling. So he moved faster to avoid slipping from hanging on too long. The humidity tasted strange on his tongue, different than Virginia. He laughed breathlessly as he lost his grip and started to fall.  
Jason shouted something, but Aaron just grinned as he caught himself on a low-hanging branch at the last moment. He started to lower himself to the ground, startling into a violent kick when an arm wrapped around his waist. "Hold," Jason ordered sharply. Aaron stilled, releasing the branch and letting Jason lower him to the ground.

"It's okay," Aaron reassured him. "I train like this a lot. Controlled falls are pretty common."

Stubbornly, Jason kept an arm around Aaron like he suspected the other man might scramble back up a tree if he let go. "That didn't look controlled."

"Sharpshooter," Aaron reminded him. "I spend a lot of time getting in and out of high vantage points." He relaxed a little as he released that Jason's hold was a compulsive reaction to seeing Aaron falling to what looked like his death. "Sorry. I won't do it again without giving you a heads up."

"Good," Jason said flatly, releasing Aaron. "You going to finish the run?"  
Aaron nodded. "On the ground. Let's go." He broke into a jog, relaxing into the stride as Jason took several fast steps to keep up. They finished the trail abreast and walked back to the bunkhouse.

The sun cut through the thick air and made Aaron want to purr like a cat as it splashed over him. Feeling looser than he had since the drugs had worn off, Aaron jumped the fence back into the bungalow's yard rather than using the gate. He eyed a tattered hammock hanging in the light, it’s cloth faded to gray. It would feel good to sleep now, warm and pleasantly sore from the run. But Jason was right, he'd never fall back into a normal sleep schedule if he started napping. "I'll take those files now," he muttered mulishly.

Jason nodded in sympathy. "Yeah. I'll get you everything I got. Coffee?"

"Yes, please," Aaron replied gratefully. "Sugar?"

"Sure," Jason said. "I can do that."

Despite the coffee, black and tooth-achingly sweet, Aaron slept hard. Maybe it was a day studying in the sunlight. But Aaron suspected it had more to do with falling asleep to Jason's breathing. He'd been alone in the infirmary. The Rasar had always said he was a good soldier with all the traits of one. They taught assets to be loners. Aaron had gotten used to it, but he'd always miss the presence of the other men in his unit even if he could barely remember their faces anymore. As tired as he was, Aaron couldn't muster any paranoia at having a stranger in the room. He dreamed of boot camp and the days before he'd seen ditches run with rivulets of blood instead of water.

The sun was on his face when he flew out of bed at whoever had touched him. Jason managed to block the strike at his throat but didn't manage to dodge the foot that swept out his knees. "Aaron," he barked.  
Aaron pulled the blow aimed at Jason's floating rib. "Sorry. Sorry, you startled me."

Jason released Aaron's elbow, which he had been about to dislocate. "I can tell. Breakfast is up. I got some ice for your shake."

"Thanks," Aaron said, scratching at the back of his neck in embarrassment. Jason didn't say anything. He just picked up the glass of white liquid with ice cubes floating in it. Aaron's stomach growled for the first time in days. He gave Jason a sincere smile, taking the glass and gulping the contents. He hadn't looked twice at the drink. The sign of trust made Jason's stolid features subtly contented. "What's on tap for today?"

"We're going to start working out surveillance rounds," Jason replied, raising an eyebrow as Aaron licked at the glass to get the last drops. "Fred's making real food."

"Nah, I'm good," Aaron sighed happily. "Run before we start?"

"Sure. Just keep your feet on the ground this time," Jason said, shaking his head. "You always smile this much?"

Aaron flushed in embarrassment at how obvious he was being. "Sometimes. Going to be a problem?"

Jason shook his head and muttered something about 'broken'. Aaron smiled wider, loosening up his shoulders as he headed for the door. Maybe that was what he really needed. Virginia was full of memories. He'd slept in the ventilation ducts above a dead woman's bed like it would be enough to stop the nightmares. A night on a cot where the air smelled like heat and foreign vegetation had helped unpack the bags beneath his eyes. Jason followed him back through the alley towards the trail. Aaron never stopped smiling as he stretched his legs out and dared Jason to keep up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean.
> 
> The chapter title refers to the song by Arlo Guthrie. It's pretty much the theme for all my airport scenes ever.
> 
> There is a difference between a sharpshooter and a sniper. Since Aaron, and later Clint, seems to consider himself a marksman/sharpshooter (even though he sometimes acts as a sniper), I went with that for how he describes himself.


	15. Don't Ask Me, I Don't Give a Damn

Aaron had never worked in the jungle before. He liked the way he could hide in the foliage, but the humidity was worse than Virginia. The job wasn't particularly pleasant either. Jason was efficient, but Aaron was better at terrifying the anti-government militants that Vila Lobos contracted with to do his drug running. Aaron hunted them down like he was tracking Peterson through the woods. Jason ran them up a tree and asked the questions. Aaron wielded the knife with a smile and cut them up until they got the point and started talking to Jason.

“I’ve got another one for you,” Aaron breathed into his throat mic as he crouched in a tree, looking down at the terrified man with an AK-47. He held some rank in one of the many miltia-esque groups that lived in the jungles. More importantly, Fred had sicced Jason and Aaron on him. “You want him gift-wrapped, sweetheart?”

“Say that to my face,” Jason suggested quietly from his own position a half mile away. “Punk.”

Aaron bit back a snicker at the fondness Jason couldn’t hide. “You know you want me,” he replied airily, punctuating the statement with a shot at the Colombian’s feet. The man hopped around, swearing in Spanish and squeezing off bursts from the rifle into the shadows in the brush. Aaron was already on the move, sliding down the back of the tree and landing in the humid loam. He gripped the body of his Stark JB 741 rifle in one hand as he padded towards a bush just out of his victim’s line of sight. It was a sniper rifle more akin to a clip fed hunting rifle than its larger caliber counterparts.

Aaron could use the more traditional rifles, but the JB (all its incarnations were affectionately known as ‘Buckys’) was more suited to his opportunistic shooting style with its lighter weight and lower sensitivity to hard jostling. He was also a little in love with the floating optics scope that Stark Industries had just put out. It was a new addition to Aaron’s Bucky. The lenses in the scope were ‘floated’ separately from the outer case. So bumping the scope into the tree or swinging it around wouldn’t shift the settings, and it could take a lot more punishment without affecting the delicate inner workings. According to the article in the Guns & Ammo magazine he stole from Fred, the scope was Tony Stark’s own design. Stark wasn’t the first man to make a scope with floating optics, but his was the best on the market. If Aaron ever met the man, he’d kiss him for the scope alone. The new rifling on the inside of the Bucky’s barrel, which improved the bullet’s long range controllability by ten percent, might make Aaron consider a blow job if Stark played his cards right.

Another potshot got the Colombian moving in Jason’s direction. Aaron broke into a sprint, crashing through the brush and making enough noise for three men. He wanted to convince the man a small army was after him. These guys weren’t cowards, far from it. But they were good at survival. So long as he believed it was a group after him, not a lone man with a rifle, he’d flee. “We’re headed towards you, snookums. Get ready,” Aaron said, breathing lightly through his mouth as he slammed behind a tree to take cover from a spray of bullets.

“Trap set, honeybun,” Jason replied indifferently. “Slow day?”

Even though he probably wasn’t in the line of sight of Jason’s scope, Aaron flipped him off. A flurry of shots from the Bucky that whizzed past the Colombian’s head and threw up a cloud of splinters got things moving along nicely. Aaron jogged behind his prey, loading a fresh clip. Jason must have been bored, because he’d moved to intercept the man running down the nearly invisible animal trail rather than waiting for him to fall into the pit trap.

The fast acting sedative Jason shot into the man’s thigh did its work leaving a crumpled heap on the jungle floor. “I can handle this,” Jason offered as Aaron caught up, the smaller man pulling down the mesh mask that covered the lower half of his face.

Aaron shrugged. If he didn’t, Fred would see on the videos and find some way to fuck with him over it. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Jason corrected with scowl deeper than normal. “Whatever they’re giving you isn’t enough to deal with this shit.” 

“Jase,” Aaron walked forward, letting the rifle barrel sag towards the ground. “I’m fine. Plus, I do psycho a hell of a lot more convincingly than you.” He didn’t flinch as Jason reached up and smeared his tiger-striped camouflage paint over the lids of his eyes and across his mouth and the places where skin showed through. Concealing all his skin would make him appear less human. His hair was already stiff with brown, green, and gray paint. The diagonal strips cut his face into sharp, organic shapes over the thin layer of light brown he’d used to cover up the shine of skin. He playfully nipped at the tips of the fingers as they pulled away. “Hey, we’re the good guys.” His dumb smile seemed to convince Jason. He pulled his mask back up to hide the white of his teeth.

“Well, let’s get him up,” Jason ordered. “You need to be out of sight before the drugs wear off.”

Aaron nodded, scaling a tree with sturdy branches showing no sign of decay. Out of the sack strapped to his thigh, he pulled out a pulley system and ropes, attaching the pulleys to the base of a branch twelve feet off the ground with locking straps. He dropped both ends of rope down to Jason. Jason secured one end of the rope around the unconscious man’s ankles. Aaron climbed higher as Jason pulled their prisoner off the ground, several feet into the air so his fingers almost touched the ground, and tied off the rope around another tree.

A handy fork thirty feet up provided Aaron with a place to stash the Bucky and his pack. He dropped back down to a branch directly above the dangling man, ready to play his part when Jason called. His fingers played across the hilt of a k-bar taped handle down to the shoulder strap of the full body tactical harness he wore. Jason had insisted on the harness if Aaron wanted to sleep up in the trees, safe from the things that crawled on the ground. Every night Aaron had tied off to a tree with a three foot climbing strap before he slept. Jason refused to join him, giving him a cool glare that made Aaron smirk.

Beneath him, Jason smacked around their prisoner to wake him up after setting up the video camera to capture any information. Aaron tuned out the wet thuds and sudden bellows of Spanish profanities. He didn’t like interrogation. So he thought about home instead. They’d been successful in uncovering Vila Lobos’ contacts among the Colombian rebels. Byer would probably take Aaron to the cabin when he got home. It was almost spring. They could go hiking without snowshoes soon. He adjusted his stance as the tree shook a little from Jason jerking the prisoner down, starting a nauseating bobbing motion.

Hopefully this one wouldn’t be stubborn. Aaron hated the ones that tried to hold out. It just meant Aaron had to spend longer hurting them. Jason didn’t seem to be getting the reaction he wanted. He summoned Aaron with their keyword, “Pantera.”

Aaron dropped to the ground from almost twenty feet up, landing in a roll that left him in a tight crouch looking up at their prisoner. The man’s dark eyes were big and frightened, and rightfully so. Painted, with part of his face covered, Aaron didn’t look human as he rose to his feet. The paint, the mask, the way he moved was meant to invoke a feeling of the unnatural. He didn’t bother hiding the liquid pleasure he took in his too quick movements as he stood. Rolling his head to loosen up the muscles of his neck, he stalked forward soundlessly, circling the man like a hungry predator. From the side of his cheek, he pushed the red dye capsule he’d slipped in his mouth that morning between two molars and bit, swirling the dye over his teeth with his tongue.

Finally, Aaron stopped in front of the prisoner, staring down into the man’s defiant gaze. Using two fingers, he pulled down the mask to reveal that he didn’t have a human face under there either, just more paint and a blood stained smile. Licking his lips, he whispered a silky “Meow,” jerking his k-bar from its sheath. Three steps that the normal human eye was barely quick enough to catch and Aaron was giving the man a close up look at the way the fake blood pearled on his canines as he crouched next to the prisoner’s face. The warm press against his shoulder told him Jason had moved behind him to ask the questions. Out of sight of the prisoner, Jason pressed several fingers against the bare skin on the back of Aaron’s neck beneath his shirt collar and crumpled mask. Focusing on that touch, Aaron kept smiling as the knife flashed through the air and the screaming started.

It took four hours to get what they came for. When dark fell and they left the body for the wildlife, Jason didn’t say anything. He just climbed the tree after Aaron and hooked his own harness to the safety line next to Aaron’s clip-on point. Jason slept with his back to the trunk, feet propped on some convenient branches. Aaron, Bucky cradled in his arms, crouched between Jason’s legs, leaning into Jason’s chest and stabilizing arm long after the sun rose the next morning, trying to pretend that the rictus twisting his mouth into a grin was easing. 

That day, when they returned to the safehouse to report, Jason told Aaron to shower and stay in the bunkhouse. Through the cracked window in the bathroom, Aaron heard the yelling from the kitchen as Jason lost his temper with Fred. Aaron tipped his face into the hot water and let the splashes cover up the noise. They were fighting about him. About how Fred kept assigning Aaron wetwork with no time to breathe in between. Even though the same schedule didn’t bother Jason in the least.

Aaron hid in his bunk, reading Jason’s book on the narcotics trade until dinnertime. Jason had already come, showered, and left for the house without a word. So Aaron slunk into the kitchen like a kicked dog to get ice for his shake. Fred was at the kitchen table on his laptop. Jason sat across from him in the other chair reading a printout. Quickly, Aaron grabbed a glass and filled it with water, mixing in the shake powder from the bag in his pocket before dropping a handful of ice in. He kept his eyes down as he charged for the door like a bat out of hell.

“Aaron,” Jason said sharply, bringing Aaron to an abrupt halt. “We’ve got surveillance detail for the next few days. We’re following Vila Lobos. Here’s what we have so far. Read it over then get some rest.” He held out a binder full of papers. Aaron accepted with a grateful smile before creeping past Fred. Three days in Bogota following a man shopping for his wife in between business meetings would be a welcome break before they were back in the jungle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, this and the past few chapters betaed by Julorean.
> 
> The Stark JB 741 is a product of my vivid imagination. Like the Winchester models it's based on, it was designed by Howard Stark for Bucky Barnes and improved as technology did over time. The latest incarnation was updated by a StarkIndustries engineer (because Tony doesn't make /everything/) about five years ago.


	16. One Night in Bogota

Jason was an experience almost as bright as the jaunts tailing Vila Lobos through the city. Whatever had happened to him left him with even less range of emotional expression than Aaron before Outcome, but he had a wickedly dry sense of humor that only got more obvious as they relaxed radio protocol by using cell phones and was still pleasantly gregarious when he discovered civilization didn’t change Aaron’s propensity to climb uncomfortably tall things. He just rolled his eyes and insisted Aaron continue to let him do the catching. 

Aaron's ability to find, scale, and observe from seemingly unreachable positions was something that Jason utilized as often in the urban setting as in the jungle. He claimed that it was insurance against Vila Lobos' security men recognizing Aaron, protecting Aaron's value as a clean in-road later on. Aaron thought it also might have something to do with the pleasure Jason took in seeing Fred's face whenever Aaron dropped in - in the most literal sense.

Vila Lobos was shopping today. It wasn't in his file, but Aaron suspected that the drug lord was very much in love with his wife of fifteen years. Bogota wasn't exactly Milan, but Vila Lobos had found the high-fashion part of the city and didn't look twice at the pretty girls showing him the clothes. Instead, he conversed over a bluetooth headset with a smile on his face as he selected outfits. Aaron frowned. His position on the third story of the café across the street gave him a good view of the store and Vila Lobos. "Fred," he murmured into his own bluetooth. "Is there any way we can hear what he's saying?"

Fred huffed. "That's not a cell we have bugged, Aaron. You want to hear what's going on, you'll have to figure out something yourself."

Aaron let out a quiet string of Pashto finishing with "Thanks for the help," in a snarl. He closed the line with Fred, leaving only Jason's phone still in conference with his.

"I don't think that's anatomically possible for the goat, a live one at least," Jason commented dryly. "You think you can get close enough to get ears on him?"

Swallowing his coffee, Aaron sighed. "I can try. I'm going to leave this line open, okay little woman?"

"Yes, honey," Jason replied sardonically. "I'm tailing Vila Lobos' head of security right now. So keep it one-sided."

"Will do," Aaron muttered, tossing down the bills to cover his coffee and paper. He gave the pretty woman waiting on him a warm smile as he passed. She smiled automatically in return, and Aaron felt confident that she wouldn't even recognize a picture of him in the same seat. He took the stairs down to the second story veranda. The café was built with only a foot between the narrow, external walkway to the kitchen and the next building which housed small boutiques. Aaron walked along it until he saw an open window and hopped over into a room of men's suits.

He browsed his way back down to the first floor and out. The sales staff didn't even notice him leaving. A guidebook completed the effect of a tourist window shopping. He stopped and took a picture to send to Jason along with a note of, 'Definitely your color, sweetheart,' before entering.

A sales woman intercepted him immediately. Before she could start jabbering in Spanish, Aaron said, "Habla ingles?" in his horribly flat American accent.

"Yes," she replied, startled. "You're an American?"

"Yeah. I'm here for work. I promised my wife I'd get her something while I was here. The prices for the local designers are really reasonable," Aaron explained with a smile that was a little self-deprecating. "I'm not sure if I could even afford your store, but she'd love that dress in the window." He thought of the faded memory of his first social worker as he spoke. She'd been a woman clinging to her fading beauty, always kind to her charges. She would have loved the dress. The tired fondness on his face seemed to convince her.

"I'm sure we could find your wife something in your price range," the woman said sympathetically. Aaron nodded with a hopeful smile. In the pocket of his cargo pants, he dialed Fred on his secondary phone. He muted the incoming call and slipped it into a pair of shoes near Vila Lobos as he passed. Then he pulled out his bluetooth and put it in his pocket, still live so Jason could hear everything.

Vila Lobos might have been buying for his wife, but he was on the phone with his Colombian business associates. His rapid-fire Spanish made it hard to discern exactly what was going on, but Aaron pointedly didn't pay very much attention. Translating that was Fred's problem. Aaron just had to shop until Vila Lobos was done, get the phone, and get out. Taking a deep breath, Aaron recalled everything he could about Kenneth's first social worker. He continued smiling at the saleswoman and held that memory in his head to make sure his expressions wouldn't tip off the large, heavily muscled men standing around the store.

The door jangled again. Another saleswoman intercepted a white couple. The man was tall and dark like Jason, with a full suit jacket that set Aaron on edge. His wife, as Aaron assumed from the possessive arm around her waist, was a slight red-head. She was also possibly the most beautiful woman Aaron had ever seen, with flawless porcelain skin, dark green eyes, and her only make-up the lipstick that left her mouth the same shade of red as her hair. Every man in the room stared at her. Aaron instinctively reached for his phone. "I'll take this one," he told the saleswoman. "Size ten. Thanks. I'm gonna call my wife and tell her. Here's my card." He handed over his cover's credit card and ambled over to the shoes. He hung up on Jason, then re-dialed. "Hey, honey," he said, playing with the pump he hidden his second phone in. "I got you a dress. Yeah, the trip is going well. It's nice to work with professionals."

Jason spoke up suddenly, "You've got something?"

"Yeah, yeah. I do. No, I thought about getting you two, but only one was really you." Aaron picked up the pump and examined it, slipping the phone back into his pocket. "Yeah, there's shoes here too, but they're a little out of our price range, honey. Here, I'll show you." He held out the pump, angling the phone to catch the couple. The woman was looking away, but he managed a decent side view of the man's face. The picture went to Jason. Aaron put the shoe down and turned to the saleswoman who had kindly wrapped his purchase in paper. "Honey, I have to go now. I'll call you tonight." He pretended to hit the end button on his phone and dropped it into his pocket. "Thank so much for your help, miss," he said with a smile.

The male professional gave Aaron a hard look as wove his way through the crowd and towards the nearest exit. Having no desire to draw any further attention to himself, Aaron clutched his package defensively to his chest and gave the man a nervous smile as he made his escape. The woman watched him as well, but he couldn't decipher her expression. He moved through the crowd quickly, making sure to break up the line of sight before he pulled out his bluetooth and put it back in. "I'm clear. We've got at least one, maybe two other guests at this party. The guy is definitely one of us. He doesn't blend well, full suit with jacket in this heat. He's got either a beard or a partner with him, female. I can't tell which."

"They make you?" Jason demanded, slightly breathless.

"I don't think so," Aaron answered, he turned sharply into an alley and scaled the fire escape with the dress tucked under one arm. The low wall around the roof provided decent cover that let him look for tails. "No tails that I can see. I'm making my way back to the house. Have one of Fred's boys pick up Vila Lobos when he's done shopping."

"I'll meet you there," Jason promised coldly. "Vila Lobos’ head of security is about to have an accident."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean (who also helped make the plot palatable. Be thankful.)
> 
> The reason Jason knows what Aaron is saying is not because he's fluent in Pashto, but Middle Eastern insults tend to be descriptive and full of goats. Assuming Jason was in the military black ops, he's probably familiar with several of those.
> 
> Also, yes, those two foreign operatives are exactly who you think they are.


	17. Rain on a Sunny Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank Julorean for the fact this is readable. All remaining mistakes are my own.

Aaron snuck into the bunkhouse through the backyard to avoid Fred. Without Jason there to act as a buffer, the man would do whatever he could to needle him. Aaron climbed one of the trees that shaded the house and swung over to the roof. The small flat at the very peak of the roof was Aaron’s favorite hiding place. Not even Jason knew about it. If he wanted Aaron, he’d just stand in the yard and wait for Aaron to appear. Fred just yelled until Aaron slunk towards the source of the sound.

Safely perched with a view of the road, Aaron stripped off his shirt and lounged, laying carefully flat, in the sunlight. If he pressed his ear to the asphalt tiles, he could hear, piecemeal, the conversation Fred was having with the translator about the conversation Aaron had managed to transmit. Apparently it hadn’t been a complete bust from the excited tones. Aaron closed his eyes, breathing in the nearly silent, measured pattern he used before taking a shot, and listened.

“Are you sure he means the hospital in Sao Paulo?” Fred demanded. There was no audible response. So he was on the phone. “Shit. Well, if we move fast we may have an opening. Jason is terminating the head of security as scheduled. We can probably take the target before he makes the airport. How long until the Russians…” Fred had moved, because his voice became indistinct.

“Aaron,” Jason called softly from yard. “Aaron, where are you?” Aaron bit back a snarl of frustration. Fred must have seen Jason come in through the back gate. He grabbed his shirt, tucking it in his waistband. He crawled on his belly to the far side of the roof where the windowless sidewall of the house was. Lifting his head slightly, he confirmed that Jason was looking expectantly at the bunkhouse before he rolled off the roof, dropping into a crouch just out of Jason’s view .

“Aaron,” Jason said, turning towards his partner as Aaron stalked around the edge of the house. “Get the kit.”

“Jesus Christ,” Aaron hissed when he saw the blood on Jason’s hands and smeared across his front. A stained rag was tied tightly around Jason’s forearm. “Tell me that’s not yours.” He’d already started at a run for the bathroom in the bunkhouse and the well-stocked first aid kit there.

Moving slowly after him, applying pressure to the rag, Jason smirked, “Not all of it. Just most. Bastard nicked one of the little arteries in my forearm. I’ve been bleeding like a stuck pig ever since.”

“Nerve damage?” Aaron demanded as he pulled on sterile latex gloves and tore open a package of gauze pads. “Get in the tub before we pull that off. It’ll minimize the mess.” He took Jason by the elbow and helped the other man down into the tub.

Jason winced as Aaron began to pull apart the knot in the rag. “Not judging by how much that fucking hurts.”

“You’re the one that tied it,” Aaron reminded him. “Screw it.” He pulled a pair of bandage scissors from the first aid kit and snipped the rag, holding it over the wound with his thumb. Then he traded the scissors for a handful of gauze pads. “How bad’s the blood loss?”

“I’ve felt better,” Jason said dryly. He flinched as Aaron yanked off the rag and all that was caked to it to examine the wound. It was a single, deep gash wound from a short, sharp knife judging from the continuous depth. “You’re going to have to flush it. God knows what was on the blade.”

Aaron nodded, pulling out a squeeze bottle of sterile solution. “Don’t hit me,” he asked with a small smile, straddling the edge of the tub to work on Jason’s arm without getting blood on the floor. Jason grinned and leaned his forehead against Aaron’s knee. “That’s not reassuring,” Aaron informed him archly as he began to force saline into the cut. He got a grunt of pain in return. Jason’s fingers pushed up Aaron’s pant leg, curling around his bare ankle and squeezing rhythmically.

The blood, stemmed by the rag, started to pulse out again. Aaron pressed a wad of gauze over the clean wound. “Put pressure on that. Let’s get rid of your shirt. Any other injuries?”

“A few cuts,” Jason muttered, blanched from bleeding again. “Nothing else deep.”

“Glue then,” Aaron sighed, pulling a tube of surgical glue out of the kit along with a bottle of peroxide and more gauze pads. He lined them up on the edge of the sink before picking up the scissors again. “I hope you aren’t attached to that shirt.”

With a smirk Jason reminded him, “It’s yours.”

“Jackass,” was groaned in return. Aaron started snipping. The sodden fabric was sticky and stiff as he peeled it off and cut the seams. “You’ve stretched it out anyways. When did I say you could steal my stuff?”  
Very pointedly, Jason looked over at the t-shirt hanging off Aaron’s bunk. “About the time you started using my shirts to sleep in. Without asking,” he said matter-of-factly. Aaron looked slightly guilty at that, tossing the bloody rags to the side .

“Point taken,” Aaron mumbled, cracking open the peroxide and dousing every cut he could see liberally. The peroxide foamed pink and ran into the tub and down Jason’s skin, soaking his jeans. Aaron gently dried the smaller cuts with the gauze, mopping up the peroxide and blood before applying a thin line of glue and holding the skin together until it set. Aaron’s latex covered fingers were gentle as he pinched the cuts shut. His eyes creased as he focused on using the minimum amount of force to get the job done. The thoughtfulness was the reason Jason had come to Aaron. Fred would have been done long ago, but Jason would have bitten the inside of his cheek bloody during treatment.

Once Aaron was satisfied he’d glued the worst of the minor cuts shut, he pried Jason’s fingers from the gauze at his arm. Blood had seeped through at the deepest part of the cut. “Okay, I can stitch this fucker or do a couple rounds of glue starting from the inside out.” Aaron raised an expectant eyebrow.  
“Glue,” Jason repeated. “I want a shower after this. Stitches mean plastic and letting you go nuts with surgical tape which my remaining body hair won’t appreciate.” 

Rolling his eyes, Aaron muttered, “Make a bad decision about how to attach a wire to you once, and you judge and judge.” He pulled off the gauze and wiped the edges of the wound. “How the hell did your target get the drop on you anyways?”

Jason grimaced as more from the quiet upset in Aaron’s tone than the glue being applied. “I needed to get him alone. So I let him make me. I didn’t expect him to be the kill first, ask questions later type. He had a punch dagger I didn’t see until it was too late. I fed it to him. Don’t worry. The local law enforcement will put it down as a mugging gone wrong.”

The statement didn’t seem to reassure Aaron. “That was stupid. You should have called. I could’ve taken him from a rooftop. Hell, I could have played bait, and you could’ve taken him from a distance. There was no reason to expose yourself like that. That’s why there’s two of us.”

“Aaron,” Jason protested.

Aaron shook his head. “Hold that shut. It’s the last layer. I need to clean up.” He stood up stiffly, stripping off his gloves and tossing them in the trash before beginning to repack the first aid kit.  
“Aaron,” Jason replied again, “Aaron, look at me.”

“It’s fine, Jason,” Aaron said coolly. “Keep the edges pushed together, or it won’t shut properly.” He kept his back to Jason as he finished scooping the medical debris into the trash. “You’ll be able to shower in five minutes. The glue will be set enough.”

“Kid,” Jason said quietly. “I’m okay. You’re right. I should have asked for help. I’m sorry I scared you.” The diminutive made Aaron pause. “Aaron, for Christsake, come here.” Jason carefully pulled his hand away from the now sealed cut on his arm. He pushed himself up to his feet in the tub. “You’re pissed at me. And you’re not wrong. But come here.”

Aaron turned around. His face was blank as a doll’s. Jason reached across the short space, the bathroom wasn’t large, and wrapped his hand around Aaron’s wrist. “We’ll both fit,” Jason said simply. “Get in.” He let Aaron go to slip out of his own jeans and boxers, tossing them on the floor next to the ruined shirt.  
With more care, Aaron slipped out of his own clothes, leaving them folded on the sink. Jason steadied him by the shoulder as he stepped into the tub.

Pulling the curtain closed, Jason turned the water to lukewarm and let it run for a few seconds before starting the shower. Once he was sure the patter of water would obscure their voices from any audio bugs, Jason said, “You’ve got something to say,” with his lips pressed to Aaron’s ear.

“I’m pissed,” Aaron snapped, barely audible over the water. “That’s all.” Jason let his ‘Bullshit’ stand unspoken. “Look, the reason I was assigned here was this woman who I worked with.”

“You get her pregnant?” Jason inquired neutrally.

Aaron pulled back. His expression made the bottom drop out of Jason’s stomach. It looked like Aaron had just been gutted. “No, I killed her. She was my friend. And I had to kill her. So, yeah, I’m pissed. Because my only other fucking friend in this world nearly got offed by some gallito who shouldn’t have ever gotten the drop on him.”

Jason remembered the face of his first kill for Treadstone right before he pulled the trigger. It had been a stranger tied to the chair in that room. Aaron hadn’t even been given that much. He wrapped his arms around Aaron’s back in the kind of engulfing hug that Aaron seemed to respond to. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, fingers toying with the short hair on the back of Aaron’s neck.

“I should be sorrier,” Aaron murmured back, resting his cheek on Jason’s shoulder and closing his eyes to keep water from running into them. “And I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Who am I going to tell?” Jason asked, pushing his fingers through Aaron’s hair. “To join Treadstone they made me kill a man in cold blood. He was tied to a chair. I put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, and I was in.”

“She tried to kill our superior officer,” Aaron responded hoarsely. “Killed his security personnel and had a gun pointed at him before I moved on her. I just watched as she took out two men to get to him.” His shoulders shook as he pressed his face into Jason’s neck. “Fuck. Don’t ever do that again, Jason. Or I’ll fucking kill you, and you’ll never see me coming.”

Jason snorted. “Cocky bastard.” He held Aaron tightly, muffling the crying jag in his neck, swaying them both back and forth.

The tears didn’t last long, because Aaron’s training was better than that. He sniffed, tipping his face up into the water and letting the spray carry away the evidence. “How long has Fred been watching?”  
“Not long enough to know what’s actually going on,” Jason said calmly. “Kiss?”

Aaron clumsily pressed his mouth to Jason’s. Fucking around might get them chewed out. What they’d discussed would get them killed. He pulled away and rinsed his mouth. “I’ll go ahead and see what he wants.”

Jason nodded. “I didn’t think anyone could be a bad kisser,” he commented wryly under his breath as they separated.

With a scowl, Aaron growled softly, “Not like I’ve had any practice.” He grabbed a threadbare towel and stepped out of the tub to sop the water from his body. He held Fred’s gaze where the man stood in the doorway to the bunkhouse, daring him to comment. Plastering a smirk on his face, he grabbed his clothes and pulled them on without ending the staring match.

“Fraternization mean anything to the two of you?” Fred demanded warily. He was aware that he’d startled them and exactly how badly they responded to surprise.

Aaron curled his lip. “Are you volunteering? ‘Cause it’s not like we have options here.” He picked up his pistol and slotted into his in-pants holster. “What’s up?”

“Our time table has accelerated. I need you in the house once you’re done sucking each other’s dicks,” Fred said, trying to rebuke them.

“Well, you’re a little late to the show for the last part,” Aaron said icilyas he grabbed his notebook and pencil. He could tell by the nervous sweat beading Fred’s face that Jason was giving their handler a dead-eyed stare reserved for targets. “We’ll meet you at the house, Fred,” Aaron dismissed sharply. “We’re the jealous type.”

The implied threat made Fred smile nervously. It effectively got the man moving back to the house. Aaron let out a long, measured exhale. A sign of relief would give too much away. “When you decide you’ve got teeth, you leave some nasty marks,” Jason noted idly as dried himself off.

“I learned from the best,” Aaron shrugged, thinking of the way Byer and the Rasar used to circle each other like feral dogs, drawing blood with words instead of fangs. “Come on. Sounds like we’re on for finishing this thing. Is that my shirt?”

Jason smirked and very deliberately pulled the shirt over his head without a word, stretching the hem so it hung loosely over his own gun. Aaron flipped him off before tossing over Jason’s notebook. Catching it one handed, Jason stepped out of the bunkhouse first, bumping Aaron’s shoulder as he passed.


	18. The Other Side of the Glass Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean.

Fred watched the door carefully as he typed up his status report to Conklin. Jason Bourne had never taken to anyone before. Not his handlers, not any agents he worked with. Even Nicky Parsons, whose track record with handling Treadstone agents was staggeringly good, and Conklin, whose authority Bourne was programmed to respect, used precautions when handling him. All Treadstone assets were borderline anti-social, prone to compulsive behaviors and violent mood swings. It was a natural result of repressing empathy combined with the high stress missions. Bourne was considered to be functionally sociopathic. Fred had worked with Bourne both times he’d pulled prior missions in South America and agreed completely with the assessment. Until NRAG sent Aaron Cross on vacation.

Suddenly, Bourne looked at someone rather than through them. At first, Fred put it down to fascination. Cross was stronger than he looked, eerily fast, and smiled far too much for a trained killer. Bourne was Treadstone’s best and brightest. Fred didn’t doubt that he’d figured out there was something different about Cross. The time in the jungle should have mitigated any obsession on the part of Bourne as the drive to complete the mission took over. Instead, Bourne had come out of the jungle with an apparent fondness for Cross and scorn for Fred where causal disregard had been. Bourne had called Conklin to finagle city duty, because Cross couldn’t handle the stress of continuous primary intelligence gathering missions. Fred knew NRAG handled their people differently. He’d put in a request to dose Cross with suppressants to stabilize him and been refused. Instead, Conklin had approved Bourne’s request for city work for a four day period with no additional comment. The whole situation stank. It was never a good thing when a specialized asset exhibited a new pattern of behavior. Conklin’s acceptance of the situation suggested outside influence.

Cross himself was different from the other program boys Fred had dealt with, even without the inconvenient pill and blood sample regime. Cross was practically timid most of the time, preferring to hide just out of sight and observe rather than confront. Bourne reacted to the weakness, not by controlling Cross like he usually did to vulnerable assets, but by acting aggressively protective. Cross, it seemed, felt the same way about Bourne from the little display in the bathroom. It had been unnerving as hell to hear Colonel Eric Byer’s voice coming out of Cross’ mouth . Fred had only ever had the misfortune of meeting the Director of the National Research Assay Group once, but the reaming he’d given everyone in the room stuck with a man.

“What did we catch?” Bourne demanded, banging through the screen door from the backyard with Cross on his heels.

Fred finished the memo and hit send before closing out of the secure mail server. “Vila Lobos is headed back to Sao Paulo tomorrow morning. We’ve got sixteen hours to eliminate him from the game without sending up flares across South America,” he explained, pulling up the transcript of the conversation. “He’s going home to see his doctor. Apparently, he’s developed side effects to his chemo. He refuses to see a local physician, and the specialist he sees can’t leave his pediatric patients. Not even Vila Lobos is enough of a bastard to make him. The flight to Sao Paulo leaves at eight AM tomorrow morning. Orders are he doesn’t make it on the plane.”

Mandy resisted the urge to scream as she read over the memo from the CIA handler. They'd released Treadstone to the CIA five years ago, then the bare bones of the Blackbriar contingency theory two years later. It had been politically necessary at the time, but she'd been afraid of something like this. Treadstone Two's programming was deteriorating. The proof was in Five's obvious concern for his temporary partner, easy to see between the lines of the handler’s report. Two had been in active conflict with their handler. A CIA handler who had given both assets enough leash to turn around and start biting back. Byer was going to be furious when he saw this. Obviously it was time for another discussion with the CIA about the proper handling protocols for specialized assets. Especially ones that didn’t belong to them. The spooks seemed incapable of understanding that human weapons were still human and required a much more delicate and precise touch than a piece of machinery.

"Ingram!" Mandy shouted. "Get in here." She began the processing of burning a disc of the memo and associated files for Byer while waiting for Ingram to extract himself from his cubicle down the hall. As the disc processed, she moved a digital copy onto a USB key. With her other hand, she picked up her office phone and dialed her secretary. "Lisa, call Anita and…"

"Director," Lisa interrupted, "Anita was transferred."

"Byer scared off another one?" Mandy snapped. "Christ. Okay, call whatever poor soul has been assigned to temp for him and the two of you arrange a meeting for the Colonel and I with Ward Abbott at the CIA. Preferably early tomorrow. We'll be staying late tonight."

"Yes, Director," Lisa sighed. "What should I order in?"

"Indian for me, please," Mandy replied. "Check with Ingram and Vendel. The Colonel will want Italian, large salad, dry, no cheese, small pasta with red sauce and meatballs. Bring it around six o'clock. Then you can go home."

"Yes, ma'am," Lisa sighed. "I'll email you the details of the meeting with Deputy Director Abbott when I get it set up."

Mandy hung up as Ingram slunk into her office. She pulled out the USB drive and slid it across the disk towards him. "Take this and pull out and analyze every relevant detail you can find. Reference our past audits for confirmation and supporting evidence. Rough up a report and hand it off to Vendel for a second opinion and clean up. We've got a meeting with the CIA tomorrow. The Colonel needs that report in his hands by six in the morning."

Ingram winced, but nodded, "Yes, ma'am. I'll make sure it’s done. Can I ask about the contents?"

"It's regarding Outcome Five's work with Treadstone Two. Make sure you include Five's pre-mission baselines in an appendix for reference," Mandy expanded as Ingram took the drive. "Have a paper copy on hand in the morning. Also, have Vendel forward me the results of Outcome Five’s most recent samples and his latest complete work up.”

Her phone rang, and she waved Ingram out of her office before she answered. "Ma'am," Lisa said, her voice strained, "I've got Alexander Conklin on the phone for you."

"Did you call Ward's office before you received Conklin's call?" Mandy demanded.

"No, ma'am," Lisa reassured her. "I was about to place the call, but I didn't have time."

"Shit," Mandy said succinctly. "Okay, the second you put him through, call Director Byer on his cell and tell him that Abbott's up to something."

"Yes, ma'am," Lisa said, taking a deep breath to steel herself. "Putting Conklin through in three, two, one…"  
"Alex," Mandy said before Conklin could start on a tear. "How wonderful to hear from you. We're setting up a meeting with Ward tomorrow. I'd like you to be there."

That blind-sided Conklin nicely. He didn't quite muffle his startled sputter. Mandy allowed herself a satisfied smirk. "I'd be happy to," Conklin snarled, "so you can explain to me why the hell my handler has three pages worth of complaints about an NRAG asset."

"I'd prefer to discuss this tomorrow," Mandy cut him off. "If you could forward me your handler's report, we could address the issues on a point by point basis." She refused to be pulled into a uncontrolled exchange of information with the man. He was a snake and incapable of not fucking people over. "Go ahead and write a memo on anything you'd like us to address," she suggested in her politest tone. "That way we can make sure everything's on the same page."

If he hadn't suspected she was recording the conversation, Mandy knew Conklin would have called her either a bitch or a whore by now. He'd called her that often enough when no one else was around to hear it. Like many of the good ol' boys, he didn't approve of her having the rank and power to match her value to Byer. The difference between him and the others was that Conklin believed himself immune from Byer's wrath. Which in many ways, he was - compared to most. Byer rarely engaged with Ward Abbott, Conklin’s superior, if he could avoid it. The last time Abbott and Byer had fought, two of Abbott's projects had been sunk and one of Byer's when the CIA got Treadstone early. So Byer very grudgingly let Conklin have his jabs at Mandy, waiting for the day the man would slip up.

"You aren't going to say a goddamn thing," Conklin spat in disgust.

"No, Alex," Mandy answered agreeably. "I'm not. I'll see you in the morning." It gave her a great deal of satisfaction to slam the phone down into its cradle as she hung up on him. Immediately she lifted the receiver and dialed Lisa, "Tell me you have Byer on the other line."

"Yes, Assistant Director," Lisa replied. "He had me disconnect Dr. Vendel's and Dr. Ingram's extensions as well. Putting the Colonel through."

Mandy blew out a breath of relief as Byer snapped, "What did that asshole want?"

"He's busy trying to blame Treadstone Two's problems on your Outcome Five," Mandy groaned. "Like they aren't running Two until the wheels come off and trying to patch the damage with excessive doses of anti-psychotics. It's not surprising Outcome Five reacted to his 'partner's' psychological issues after all the time you spent socializing him. Or that Five displayed the emotional strain normally since we still controlled his meds. I've got Vendel and Ingram gleaning the memo we received for anything useful. How are things on your end?"

Byer didn’t say anything for a moment. When he spoke the words were carefully level to hide his frustration. “We lost Outcome Nine. Decreasing the dosages didn’t stabilize the gene degradation. We attempted to viral her out for both neuro and somo on the off chance that might solve the problem. It was too late to tell if it might ever be an effective treatment. About three hours in her fever spiked about to a hundred and six and systemic organ failure set in. We’re shipping the body to Maryland for autopsy. I’ll send you the medical report.” His voice was gravelly with fatigue.

Mandy closed her eyes and breathed. “Shit. I’ll pull Five’s latest samples for double-checking. When can you make it back? We’ve got a meeting tomorrow with Ward Abbott to deal with the CIA’s fuck-up.”

“I’ll start driving back now. What’s your judgment on the validity of the handler’s concerns?” Byer rasped. A wet sound followed as he slurped down half a cup of coffee to wake himself up.

Scrolling through the memo, Mandy snorted. “There might be one or two valid concerns about the attachment Outcome Five has to Treadstone Two and vice versa. The rest of it looks like clumsy management. This man, Dahlberg, is a Treadstone handler. He’s not competent with an asset as responsive as Five. Dahlberg doesn’t even realize how Five’s undermining him with Two. He’s never dealt with anything as subtle as Outcome. And he tried to deal with it by intimidating Five. Which…” Mandy pushed up her reading glasses to pinch her nose. “You have to read this, Rick. This man is unbelievable. The implications about how they’re doping Treadstone assets…” She blew out a steadying breath through her nose. “Just start driving, sir. I’ll get a brief ready. That’ll be simpler.”

“Dita,” Byer said fondly, “don’t hurt any of the underlings I gave you sewing this up. Aaron’s damn near perfect. We already know how the CIA handles the unexpected. We just need the numbers to prove it.”

“I’m well aware, sir,” Mandy replied, but she wasn’t sharp. Byer’s reassurances had nothing to do with condescension and everything to do with him worrying about her ability to walk after sitting up all night. “I’m hanging up so you don’t crash on the drive back. Dinner will be waiting for you.” She put the phone down firmly before turning back to the memo. If Conklin wanted a fight, she’d remind him why she was Byer’s right hand. “Ingram!”

Ingram stuck his head in her office again, his grimace poorly hidden. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I need one of your research assistants. Send over someone who I don’t intimidate into pissing themselves,” she ordered without looking up. “Secret clearance.”

“I’ll send someone in a half-hour,” Ingram promised before retreating like Mandy had lit him on fire.

“Have them bring coffee,” she called after him as she began to compile the list of Treadstone and Outcome documents she wanted from the archives.


	19. Tipping Points

“We could take him at the hotel,” Aaron pointed out, leg hanging off his bunk as he sipped his coffee. He grimaced at the burnt taste and held it out for more sugar.

Jason added another heaping spoonful and stirred before mixing significantly less into this own cup. “He’s had two weeks to layer security there. I’d rather get him somewhere where we’ve got more influence over the environment,” Jason considered, looking at the maps they’d pinned to the walls. “It’ll have to be a close up job to look like an accident. He’s got too much security to tamper with the car, and staging a car accident with a second vehicle this late in the game just isn’t plausible.”

“So, if outright violence is out, we’re going to have make it look like a complication of the cancer.” Aaron flipped through his notes on Vila Lobos’ medical condition. “Assisted pulmonary embolism?”

Opening his own notes, Jason grimaced. “That’s a dangerously close job. It’d work, but we’d an opening.”

“So, one of us in the opening, the other does the deed,” Aaron shrugged. “He’ll probably take care of last minute business early tomorrow. That exposes him. We move in with a distraction. Do it while his security is tied up cleaning up our mess.”

Jason shook his head, “This is Bogota. What the hell kind of distraction is going to be large enough to give us an opening.”

“What’s the probability he’s going to go past the American Embassy?” Aaron asked speculatively.

“No,” Jason said sharply. “Aaron, whatever you’re thinking, it’s a bad fucking idea.”

“Bunch of gringos, some of them with guns, running around yelling? Sounds like a distraction to me,” Aaron smirked.

Jason took a long sip of his coffee, watching Aaron over the rim of his mug. “What do you hear when I say no? No, Aaron. We’d draw too much attention. We’re not the goddamn IMF or whoever else they had training you. A bullet is the safest way of handling this. A syringe would be better, but I don’t think it’s an option. Even if it would give you a chance to blow up a car.”

Aaron pouted a little but couldn’t suppress the smile. “Okay, we take him out in front of the hotel. It’s classic. We’ll have to do something to impair his security to get an opening.”

Jason put down his coffee. “Yeah, food poisoning?” Aaron fluttered his eyelashes in return, holding out his mug for a refill. Jason obliged him from the carafe and, because those baby blues had somehow managed to beat the Treadstone drug regime, added sugar, stirring so Aaron didn’t have to leave the bunk to get the spoon. 

“I can do that,” Aaron agreed. “I’ll have to go in alone though. Sorry, Jase, you scare people.” He leaned down to and gestured at the laptop screen. “Pull up the hotel. I need a way in.”

Clicking on the files full of surveillance photos, Jason panned through them for Aaron. “You’ll need access to the kitchen. So, hotel staff?”

“It’ll have to be personal chef for a guest. No way in hell I can pass as a local,” Aaron sighed. He tapped his fingers against the side of the mug. “Do we have copies of the ID badges that the hotel uses?”

“Even better,” Jason said, flipping through his notes. “We’ve got people at the desk. We’ll know exactly when they order, and she’ll vouch for you with the kitchen. You’ll need props, a white jacket, a cooler of food… Can you cook?”

“I can fake it,” Aaron shrugged. “I’ll do something simple with a lot of raw components. Salad, uh, egg. Eggs are easy, right?”

Jason winced. “We’ll need Fred. His food’s pretty good. He can teach you to make something before dinner. I’ll put together the cultures to spike the food.”

Fred winced as Aaron prodded the steak with a finger. “Okay, you’re going to be in a professional kitchen. So use gloves to handle the raw meat, and don’t cross contaminate with the produce. Here’s how it goes. You start with the potatoes. Slice it up and boil it. You’re going to leave the peel on. So scrub down the potatoes with a stiff brush to get all the dirt off first. Those’ll boil for about five minutes. Then you poke’em with a fork until the fork goes easily all the way through.”

Aaron picked up the other potato and mimicked Fred with a look of intense concentration. His knife skills at least were up to par. Not surprising considering what he’d been brought in to do.

Fred filled one of his pots with the water. “Boil this on high, uncovered. Add a couple pinches of salt to the water. Add the potatoes after it starts to boil. While you’re waiting, put on your gloves and rub this spice mix on the steak. Remember the gloves, Aaron. If you don’t, it’ll get you noticed.”

“Don’t set anything on fire while your grilling the steak,” Jason offered helpfully from the table where he was forging Aaron an ID badge.

With a dirty look at Jason, Aaron finished seasoning the steak and slapped it on the grill. “Five minutes per side?” he verified with Fred.

This was the third steak Aaron had attempted. Fred was hopeful as the second one had only been slightly overdone. “Yep. Don’t touch. Get those potatoes in the water and start on the salad.” Aaron obediently began shredding the pre-prepared components lined up on the counter into the bowl. “Now, no one’s going to ask why you have everything prepped to the nines. Just don’t forgot to keep moving.”

Shaking up the container of vinaigrette, Aaron drizzled it neatly over the salad and tossed. He picked up the white plate from the table and set it down. He mounded the salad on a quarter of the plate like Fred had told him. Then he rushed over and checked the potatoes. They were almost overdone, but Aaron rescued them with cold water before mashing with cream and butter. His whipped through the rest of the prep, remembering to flip the steak to finish cooking. The steak would actually be half decent this time. He put a mound of potatoes another quarter of the plate, draping the steak over the remaining half. With great ceremony, he placed the plate in front of Jason.

Jason pushed his forging supplies to the side and sliced into the steak. It bled a little onto the plate. He popped the piece of meat in his mouth and chewed contemplatively. “Edible. We’re good, Fred.”

“Okay, now just remember the gloves and to salt the water,” Fred repeated. “Both of you get changed. We’re burning daylight. I need to drop Jason off at the hotel soon. Aaron, pack up your supplies like I showed you in the cooler. Be ready to go when I get back.”

Aaron glanced at Jason, shrugging slightly. Jason scooped several bites of potato into his mouth before standing up and handing Fred the ID card to be laminated. They both headed for the bunkhouse to change.  
“Not bad,” Jason commented. “I’d eat your cooking.”

“You’d eat anything that didn’t run away,” Aaron commented fondly, trading his t-shirt for an undershirt and an ultra-light white chef’s jacket. “Nice shirt.”

The shirt Fred had gotten Jason was a particularly awful shade of light orange. There was a pair of khaki slacks and loafers to go with it. The attire of an upper-class American business man was camouflage to get him a room at the hotel. Jason winced as he pulled it on. “I should have chosen kitchen duty,” he sighed, buttoning it up.

“No takebacks,” Aaron replied cheerfully. “Not after all that time and effort Fred spent on teaching me how to cook.” He finished tying on his white jacket. Jason approached him with a palm full of water from the sink. Aaron took a suspicious step back.

Jason rolled his eyes, “I’m not going to throw it at you. No matter how much of a smartass you are. Your hair is military right now. I’m going to fix it.” Gently, Jason used pinches of water to spike up Aaron’s hair out of the crisp cut he kept it in. “There, now you look like someone’s eyecandy chef rather than a government killer.”

“Aren’t you sweet with all the compliments? You’re making me blush,” Aaron drawled. “Get out of here before Fred comes looking. Be careful.”

“The cultures are in the biohaz drawer in the fridge with your samples,” Jason replied, ruffling Aaron’s hair. “You be careful. You’re the one exposed. It’s in liquid form, already loaded into spray bottles. Spritz the food and walk. They’ll be sicker than dogs tomorrow. Don’t get it on your skin. It may not make you sick, but don’t take the risk.”

Aaron pressed into Jason’s petting. “I’ll be careful. Scram, asshole. I need to go pack up my new kit.” He gently shoved Jason away. The bastard didn’t even pretend to stagger as he backed up with a softness around his eyes which stood in for smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed by the ever lovely Julorean. Fred's little primer came from a culinarily inclined friend of mine. Though it was directed towards me and my utter inability to produce food edible to others. The private chef thing was actually from a story I heard from a co-worker who did some work in South America. I know nothing about it otherwise.


	20. Pretty Liar

Getting into kitchen was easier than Aaron expected. With his ID badge showing that he was a guest’s personal chef, no one looked twice. The hotel catered to the stupidly wealthy, and thus eccentric. Aaron was one of three personal chefs given counter space. As he cooked he kept one ear out for the chatter of the in-house chefs. According to the inside man at the desk, a round of sandwiches, soup, and various snacks had been ordered for Vila Lobos’ security men. The food was being arranged on a cart on the other side of the kitchen. Aaron kept moving as he tried to find a subtle way to ease over to the other side of the room. The potatoes were taking an annoyingly long time. The steak didn’t seem to be browning properly.

Then a waitress from the hotel restaurant wander in, and Aaron saw his opening. Pulling on another pair of gloves, he wandered over towards the woman, who was pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way. He gave her a soft, shy smile as he reached up for a metal mixing bowl for the potatoes. She blushed a little as she chattered with one of the female chefs, all older women, making the sandwiches. The reach pulled the white jacket tight over the muscles of his chest and shoulders, lifting the hem a few inches so she could see the curve of his ass beneath his jeans. It was a move the Rasar had taught him. The Rasar had told him he was attractive, and it never hurt to try a soft touch. He seemed to attract the right kind of attention from his target.

“Perdon,” he said softly as tucked to the bowl under one arm, looking straight at the woman. “Donde es… potato masher?” He blushed a little at how thick his accent was.

She gave him her own shy, kind smile that made his blush worse. “No lo se, senor.” She hesitated, then asked in heavily accented English, “What you need?”

Aaron took the loose, welcoming hang of her arms as in invitation to move closer. Close to where the sandwiches were. The other women, tittering, gave them some space. Aaron slipped the spray bottle out of his pocket and shook, covering the movement with the bowl. “Potato masher. Uh, papa smash?” He grimaced at himself.

The woman laughed, tipping her head back. Aaron lifted the bowl slightly towards her, like it was part of a pantomime. Quickly, he misted the sandwiches, keeping her eyes on his brilliant smile. “Well, fork for the papas?” He pulled his hand back, dropping the bottle back into his pocket. With his hand now free, he pointed at the bowl and said, “Papas,” making smashing motions with his fist.

“Oh,” the woman said brightly. She took his wrist, giggling a little as he obediently followed her to a rack of cooking implements, pointing to a potato masher, she said, “Yes?”

“Si,” Aaron agreed with a big smile, taking down the potato masher. “Gracias, Senorita.” They stared foolishly at each other for a moment before an angry shout from the other side of the kitchen drew Aaron’s attention. His pot of potatoes was starting to boil over. “Shit!” He ran over and lifted it off the heat. The woman was laughing at him, a clear, bell like sound that made even the other guest chef who shouted smile. “Lo siento. Lo siento mucho,” Aaron apologize quickly, draining the potatoes then stripping off his gloves to mash them. The other chef waved him off, more amused than angered now that he’d seen what had distracted Aaron.

Aaron finished the meal quickly, covering the plate and cleaning up before repacking his cooler. He loaded up the cooler and plate on a trolley and wheeled it out of the kitchen. The bus boy pushing the trolley of sandwiches was being harassed by a man in a suit, one of the bosses. Aaron caught enough of the rapid fire conversation to know that they needed the busboy in the restaurant. “Habla inglas?” Aaron asked the man in the suit.

“Yes,” he snapped, turning on Aaron and glaring. “What do you need?”

“I can take that cart up. I only have one plate to deliver,” Aaron offered.

The suit hesitated then nodded, “Si. Get your things moved. Quickly. Room 718. You can find that?”

“I’m headed to eight,” Aaron confirmed. “I’ve got it, boss.” He moved his cooler and plate over to the cart and took it from the bus boy with a reassuring smile. Loaded up, he wheeled the cart to the elevator and hit the buttons for four, five, and seven. The minute the door closed he pulled out a pair of latex gloves from the cooler and began spraying each sandwich individually. He was done before the elevator stopped at the fourth floor. The trip from the fourth to the fifth he hid the gloves and bottle in the cooler. While he had the cooler open, he pulled out the black kerchief Fred had included in case the kitchen was hot enough to require a sweat rag. Aaron tied it over his hair to hide the color.

He kept his eyes down as the door opened for the seventh floor. One of Vila Lobos’ men met him in the hall. “Kitchen’s busy,” Aaron said, accenting his English with Pashto. “They asked me to bring up your platters on my way up.”

The guard’s face was puzzled as he tried to figure out Aaron’s accent. After a moment’s consideration, he seemed to shrug it off as unimportant. “I’ll take you to the room. You can leave the food there.” Aaron followed him into the suite of rooms the security personnel used. He made sure to keep his posture stooped and eyes low. No one looked twice as he unloaded the food and left again. He and the trolley went back into the elevator up the eighth floor. Jason was waiting patiently in the single room Fred had rented them. He opened the door when Aaron knocked twice, paused, and knocked once. “Leave the trolley in the hall. Fred got the cheapest room in the place. There’s barely any room to walk.”

“Dump the food,” Aaron advised as he took the cooler and let Jason get the plate. Jason grimaced and scraped the food into the trash before putting the plate back on the trolley and closing the door. Once the door was securely shut, Aaron filled Jason in. “The kitchen was overworked. I got three minutes alone with the food in the elevator.”

Jason smirked. “It’ll start late tonight. They’ll be miserable and useless by seven tomorrow.”

Aaron wandered over to the window. “We’re taking the shot from the store across the street?” he guessed.

“Actually, I’m planning on taking the shot from the room,” Jason said, pointing down at the street. “The angle will be harder to determine, because it’s so steep. I want you on the store in case I miss. You take him if I don’t.”

With a resigned huff, Aaron muttered, “Why am I the one spending the night on a roof?” as he stripped out of the chef’s jacket and stowed it in cooler.

Jason smirked. “You sleep in trees, snookums. At least on a roof, you can stretch out.” He tossed Aaron a t-shirt. “I’ve got your kit ready. You want to piss first?”

“No,” Aaron said dryly, “I enjoy pissing in bottles. Ass.” He unbuckled his belt, flipping off Jason with his hand at his waist before closing the bathroom door.

“Promises, promises,” Jason called through the door, completely deadpan. Aaron had no doubt he was leaning on the wall next to the door. That he was out of sight, but nearby, grated. If you couldn’t see someone, it was tough to watch his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed by Julorean. The bottle Aaron was using, and the reason Jason couldn't eat the food, was full of bacteria suspended in water. These bacteria are what cause the food poisoning. It's also why Aaron was concerned about contamination. For those not versed in spy movies, Aaron covered his hair and took on an accent to conceal his nationality (and thus divert suspicion).


	21. I Fly to You

It was a long, cold night beneath the urban camouflage mesh on the rooftop. Aaron nested a little, laying down a thermal blanket before situating himself and covering his whole body and the rifle with the mesh. He tucked the pack into his side with his snacks, canteen, and caffeine pills on top. Jason, despite his teasing, had remembered the empty water bottles and plastic bags to Aaron’s relief. He’d done the field course without those helpful little items, but he had a deep aversion to lying in his own waste if he could avoid it. His nose had gotten better since he’d joined Outcome.

They alternated sleeping in case Vila Lobos ended up leaving during the night. Jason had the luxury of a bed to sleep on when it was Aaron’s shift. Aaron just pressed his cheek to the stock of his rifle and dozed when it was his turn to sleep. His Bucky was too obvious for an urban setting. Fred had gotten him a Nemesis Vanquish instead. It was a break-down .308 rifle which packed into a discrete, black case. Jason had an identical one in the hotel room.

Luckily, the night was uneventful. People came and went, including a doctor. Vila Lobos’ men were down hard according to Fred. They wouldn’t notice a man in a gorilla suit come morning. The soup had been blamed. The doctor suspected spoiled shellfish according to Fred's source inside the hotel.

Aaron nibbled on jerky and protein bars to stave off the stomach cramps, sipping water sparingly. Through his scope, he saw that Jason had gotten room service. Lucky bastard. Though Jason, very obviously in front of the window, put half of the giant cheeseburger and fries into a styrofoam container. Bastard, but not a greedy one.

Fred came and removed the cooler and excess bags through the service elevator. He also took the leftovers. Jason and Aaron would be able to move quickly after the shot was taken. While in the room, he waved nervously at the window. Aaron was tempted to use the mirror in his pack to send back a response, but a flash off a mirror looked an awful lot like the flash off a scope. And Fred’s heart probably couldn’t take it.

They had radios, but Aaron didn’t dare do more than listen. A too loud whisper could draw unneeded attention. So he listened to the domestic sounds of Jason moving, cleaning his pistol, pacing the room. The TV was turned on to a Spanish soap opera marathon. It was too faint for Aaron to make out the plot. The occasional random exclamations were kind of entertaining. Aaron started making up his own storyline based on the few phrases he did manage to understand. It was a way to pass the time until dawn.

Lucia had just found out that Ricardo was actually a she and pregnant when Fred’s voice crackled over the radio. “He’s on the move boys. I’m at pick up point alpha. Start moving as soon as you have confirmation.”  
Jason answered for both of them, “Roger that. Starting the duck hunt now.”

Aaron resettled himself. He wouldn’t move again until Jason pulled the trigger. The pack was strapped shut, the rifle case opened and ready to go, the blanket beneath him folded and stowed, before he took his position. Aaron shot bent legged as a rule. The splayed position made his hips hurt. He was using a tripod to save his elbows, which were stiff despite the pads he’d put on before lying prone. Jason was visible through the window, setting the rifle up on the desk for the first time. The L-shape of the hotel building would give him a clear shot through the half-opened window into the courtyard where cars picked up guests. It also gave anyone in the shopping center that got lucky a chance to see the rifle. So Jason had kept it out of sight until the last moment.

Thumbing off the safety, Aaron pressed his cheek to the stock, waiting for Vila Lobos to appear before he sighted in. “Aaron,” Jason said softly over the radio as he took up his own position, kneeling and using the desk as a shooting bench, “ready?”  
“Ready,” Aaron replied barely above a whisper. “Don’t miss.” Jason laughed a little. Aaron regretted that it was too late in the game to see his smile with the scope.

Vila Lobos’ security looked like shit even through the scope. They were pale, sweaty, and obviously not completely with it. Vila Lobos himself was obviously annoyed, but routine led to mistakes. He was used to being the biggest, baddest dog in town. So close to making his flight, he wouldn’t want to delay and interrupt his scheduled routine for a stomach bug. He should have waited for a fresh contingent of security before continuing.

Jason didn’t delay. Vila Lobos walked into his line of fire, and he put three bullets in the center mass. The other two shots were slightly off. One hit a bodyguard in the stomach. The other chipped a decorative column on the far side of the courtyard. Aaron started to creep back, planning to break down the rifle and get behind cover before standing.

Three more shots rang out. The window of Jason’s room shattered. Aaron swore softly, turning towards the building three blocks down that overlooked the surrounding buildings. Pressing his eye to the scope, he scanned the roofline. Sure enough, the man from the store was standing there brazenly confident that he was too far away from the window to be a target. He was well out of range of Jason’s .308 rifle at a lower elevation. He didn’t expect the bullet to the leg. It was the best Aaron could do. He’d arced the bullet for maximum elevation at that range on the fly. The fact he’d hit at all with Vanquish he’d take as a win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed by Julorean. The Vanquish was the rifle used in the Legacy movie. Though the one from the movie was probably a larger caliber than the .308. Our mysterious shooter is carrying a high powered rifle of a higher caliber than our two American boys are. That's why Bourne can't shoot back, and Aaron can't get a good shot. Much of this scene was inspired by Doyle from 28 Weeks Later.


	22. Good God Y'all

Aaron knelt up and disassembled the rifle so fast his hands blurred a little. He packed the pieces and wormed backwards until he was safely behind cover, dragging his pack alongside. “Jason,” he snapped, “Jason, are you hit?”

“No,” Jason muttered. “I’m clear. I’m packed and on the move.” He sounded distracted.

“I got the shooter. Non-lethal. It’s our friend from the dress shop,” Aaron said quickly, tucking the rifle case in the floppy, worn back backpack. “I’m headed to the pick-up point now.” He slung the pack over his shoulders and began bounding down the fire escape.

“I’ve got a tail,” Jason said intensely. “Female, red-head, blue dress.”

“That’s our shooter’s partner,” Aaron confirmed. “Get out of there.” He slid down the ladder into the alley. “How the fuck did she find you?”

“I don’t know,” Jason growled. “She was waiting down the hall when I came out of the room.” He was tense even through the snow on the radio. “I can’t shake her. And I can’t do anything because of the security cameras.”

Aaron broke into a jog, “Keep moving, stay close to crowds. I’m coming to get you.” He dodge around the masses of humanity in the street, headed for the corner where Fred was waiting in a non-descript SUV. Opening the back door, Aaron threw in his pack, checking that his pistol was still in his in-pants holster. 

“What kind of ordinance do you have?” he demanded.

Fred turned around in the driver’s seat to stare at him. “What?”

“Tatoo,” Aaron snapped. “What. Do. You. Have. In. The. Trunk? Jason needs help.”

“I don’t carry ordinance,” Fred replied uneasily. “I’ve got some flashbangs, tear gas, mace, things like that. My job is generally distraction.”

Aaron ran around the back of the car. “Pop the trunk.” He banged on it to make his point. Fred popped it open. An innocuous cardboard box sat in the back corner. Aaron slit the tape with his pocket knife revealing a small stash of police issue flashbangs and teargas. He stuffed two flashbangs each into the cargo pockets on the sides of his thighs. “Give me your messenger bag,” he ordered Fred. The man wisely didn’t argue, emptying his laptop and papers onto the front seat. Aaron snatched the bag and dumped in two canisters of pepper spray and enough smoke grenades and tear gas to make Fred pale. “Get my mask out of my shooting pack. Now!” While Fred fumbled through the pack for mask Aaron used to cover the lower half of his face, packed in case the night was cold, Aaron retrieved the bandana Fred used to mop the sweat off his face. Fred held out his mask, and he snatched, grabbing the water bottle in the cup holder that Fred had been drinking while waiting. He soaked both the bandana and mask with water. The bandana went over his hair. He pulled on the mask, letting it hang loosely around his neck for the moment.

“We’ll meet you at pick up point Charley,” he said softly, breathing the thick, diesel tasting city air deeply to prepare himself. “Get ready to roll when you see us. We don’t want to stick around.” He took off at a fast walk, headed for the staff entrance of the hotel. “Jason, head down towards the restaurant,” he ordered. “Do you have water?”

“No. I can get some,” Jason replied softly, his voice low to avoid drawing attention.

“Get some. When I say, wet down your shirt and pull it over your mouth and nose,” Aaron said, pausing by the service entrance and steeling himself. “Things are going to get chaotic soon. Just keep moving towards the dining room.” He visualized the floor plans he’d pored over for the past four days. The security office was in the service area near the staff break room. He walked in the service entrance headed for break room. He got a few funny glances, but no one challenged him.

The door to the security center was flimsy, cheap vinyl and plywood. It wouldn’t be hard to go through it, but Aaron knocked anyways. He smiled at the elderly security guard who answered. Then he punched the man in the throat to keep him quiet, body slamming him back into the room. A firm kick shut the door behind them. Aaron caught the man before he fell, twisting his neck sharply until it popped. A quick rummage through the desk turned up a bottle of chirrinchi, the local clear moonshine, and a pack of cigarettes with a matchbook tucked in plastic.

The security system was digital with analogue back-ups. Aaron ripped out the servers that stored the digital data and tucked them into his bag. The analogues he poured the liquor over. A papery match from the matchbook started a nice little blaze that made the tape crumple and smoke before it burned. Aaron closed the door and ambled towards the restaurant. As he stood in one of the less travelled hallways near the server’s entry to the dining room, he pulled up the mask to cover the lower half of his face and pulled the pens on two tear gas grenades, holding the spoons in place to keep the grenades from going off.

A lull in the serving staff gave him the opening he needed to charge into the dining room. He rolled the two grenades in first. The clouds of gas started the chorus of screams. He added two smoke bombs to the mix, following it up with more tear gas. Pulling out a can of pepper spray, he picked his targets, choosing the men in expensive suits. “Jase,” he said just loudly enough to be heard over the cries. “Wet down your shirt before you enter the dining room. I’ll meet you at the west door.”

Some of the security guards got themselves together long enough to charge into the dining room with wet napkins on their faces. From the lack of coherence in the shouted orders, no one really knew what was happening. A couple of flashbangs through the east door, away from the tear gas, slowed them down. He maced an American in a suit worth more than his life on his way to the west door. Jason was headed into the smoke with his shirt pulled over his face. “In front of you,” Aaron warned before emerging from the fog of tear gas. He glanced over Jason’s shoulder and saw a flash of red. “Let’s go.”

Jason clamped a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. Since Aaron was less affected by the gas he was still flinging, it was easier for him to pull Jason along through the room. Rather than the server’s entrance he used to get in, he took them to the main doors which led to the lobby. They joined the streaming of coughing, crying humanity pushing their way through. Beneath the feet of the crowd, Aaron rolled a canister of smoke and another of tear gas. It continued the panic towards the doors of the lobby out to the street. Aaron and Jason split from the crowd at the first junction that led to the hotel rooms.

Pulling off the bandana and pushing down the mask, Aaron began mopping at Jason’s face with the wet bandana. The tear gas had left Jason’s eyes swollen and leaking. His nose wasn’t any better. “Sorry about that,” he muttered. “That should have shaken your tail.”

“I’d say so,” Jason rasped. “Almost shook me.” He gave Aaron a smile too stiff to be as reassuring as he wanted. It melted away completely as he saw the woman walking calmly down the hall in the mirror. Leaning against the lobby wall behind her was the man, breathing hard. “Goddammit,” Jason said without inflection. Aaron glanced over at the reflection and grimaced. At least they were out of sight behind the corner. “Do you have any more flashbangs?” Jason inquired idly.

“Yep,” Aaron replied keeping his eyes on the woman.

Jason nodded. “Split up. Meet me at the corridor next to the main laundry facility. The one with the blind corner. I’ll bring her to you. You know what to do.” Aaron nodded slowly, backing away so the woman wouldn’t see him. He reached into his pocket and pull out his second to last flashbang. Jason took it, pulling the pin and throwing it around the corner at the woman. She dodged behind cover of a decorative nook.

While she was evading, Aaron and Jason started running, splitting up at the first chance they came to. Aaron stayed low, taking the fastest route the hallway Jason wanted him at. He waited at the blind corner, pulling the pin on the flashbang and holding the spoon in place, listening. Time didn’t hold a lot meaning as he focused on the sounds from the down the hall, disregarding the yells and cursing, the distant sirens. Until he heard the fast, heavy tread of Jason running. A lighter set of steps, speeding up to catch him, was slightly further down the hall. When Jason was about ten feet from the corner, Aaron dropped the spoon and stepped into the hall. He held the grenade for a long two count behind his body. Jason passed him as he threw. The woman came around the turn Jason had just exited. The hallway was blind curve. She ran straight into the flashbang. Her green eyes were wide as she realized that the man she was chasing wasn’t as alone as she’d thought. Aaron dove around the corner as the flashbang went off only a few feet from her face. She screamed, but he couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears.

Jason pulled his gun, a small nine millimeter that was easily concealed in the small of his back. He walked back towards where the woman lay, stunned and bleeding from her ears as she stared up at the ceiling, still blinded. “No!” Aaron shouted. “Wounded goat. She needs her partner to get her out.” He grabbed Jason’s arm. “We can’t waste more time loosing tails.”

The logic seemed to convince Jason. Her partner wouldn’t bother with a dead body, but he would have to rescue her since the flashbang had left her functionally incapacitated for several minutes. Jason took the lead since Aaron was still reeling from the effects of the flashbang. He took the nearest exit and lost them in the crowd outside, moving them slowly to the edge until they could slip away onto a side street. No one stopped them, assuming they were just more victims staggering towards the hospital. They looked the part with Jason’s swollen face, and Aaron pausing to vomit from the dizziness. Fred loaded them into the car with a look of relief and pulled into traffic at a sedate pace guaranteed to go unnoted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed kindly by Julorean. A few notes:
> 
> 1) Bourne wasn't about to take out a foreign operative on camera while on a sanctioned mission. Remember, he's got vested interest in not being considered expendable because he was exposed. Aaron's a little more reckless than Bourne. (Or maybe he just is willing to risk more for his friends. You decide.)
> 
> 2) Tatoo (tah-tou) is a Pashto insult basically meaning 'you mule' or 'you dumbly stubborn person'.
> 
> 3) Flashbangs are technically called stun grenades. I find flashbang is a more easily understood name for them. A 'spoon' is the safety lever on the grenade. It's that metal bit they hold down in the movies. A flashbang to the face is not laughing matter. Serious burns, busted eardrums, and a concussion are just a few of the very possible injuries that could be sustained.
> 
> 4) The chapter title refers to the song War by Edwin Starr.


	23. Dreaming of Shallow Graves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I have to warn for sex here? I mean, consensual, happy sex. After all, if you made it this far consensual sex probably shouldn't faze you...

"Did you have to take out the entire restaurant?" Jason demanded. He was pacing the bunkhouse. Aaron was up on his bunk to give him room. His legs were curled close to him in the seated shooting position. Even though his rifle was in the house, he rested his arm against his knee, tracking Jason without realizing it. 

Carefully, not wanting to agitate Jason further, Aaron murmured, "It worked. You heard Fred, the cops are blaming it on radical communists. There were two fatalities, and we didn't start a shit storm by killing a foreign operative of unknown origin. There's no security footage , the smoke obscured any cell phone footage, and the sprinklers going off after we left means no easy evidence." He shrugged. "There wasn't a clean way out. Not with two possibly hostile operatives involved. We could've done worse."

Jason stopped in front of the bunks, reaching up to still Aaron with a hand on the arm. "They aren't going to see it that way, kiddo." His eyes were dark. It was the first time Aaron realized that Jason could be afraid.

"Hey," Aaron leaned forward, pressing his cheek to the top of Jason's head. "Let's run. Sitting here waiting for shit to hit the fan is just going to piss you off more and make me hide on the roof."

"You want to run?" Jason asked incredulously. "Aaron, the adrenaline crash, lack of sleep, you don't feel that?"

Aaron shifted uneasily. He remembered crashing vaguely. He'd done in Afghanistan. The tension of missions, even an overnight one like Vila Lobos' termination, built up until it snapped the minute it was over. He hadn't crashed, and he wasn't still flying. It dawned on him, looking at the bags under Jason's eyes and tension creases around his mouth, Jason was tired. They'd spent a week in the jungle, hyper-vigilant and sleeping in short bursts. Then there was only two days of partial recovery doing surveillance before they had down a thirty-six hour mission on cat naps. Aaron should have looked just as bad as Jason felt. But, he honestly still wanted to run the stiffness out of his legs.

"Can I see that?" Jason asked quietly, looking at the pill container around Aaron's neck. Aaron guarded fiercely. They'd never talked about the pills or injections that Fred gave them. It was too great a risk.

Shakily, Aaron reached up and convulsively clutched the container. "I need them," he said with forced evenness. "If I don't have 'em, Aaron Cross doesn't exist." He tried not the think about it, had gotten very good at not thinking about it. Byer had been very specific about what would happen if he didn't get his chems on schedule. So Aaron stuck to the schedule and pretended that everything he was didn't hang in a metal box around his neck. 

"Hey," Jason laid a hand of Aaron's clenched fist. "It's okay. I just wanted to make sure they weren't stims. But it's probably just you and your wacky blood." He moved slowly when he lifted his fingers from Aaron's hand to gently knuckle Aaron's cheek. Lots of squishy, easily hurt things in the face. No matter how much Aaron trusted Jason, any hands near his face made him nervous.

Aaron hadn't dosed for the day. Something about spending the morning tear-gassing a hotel. He let Jason watch as he slid the lid of the container and licked his index finger to pick up one blue and one green . They stuck his finger as he held them out for Jason to see. He scraped the pills off on his bottom teeth to make sure the sticky, partially dissolved part would be swallowed too. "Not stimulants," he explained as the pills dissolved beneath his tongue. "At least, I've never noticed anything like that. They're just chems."

Jason nodded, "Good. Stay here. We're not running, but I know something else that'll work." He stalked out the door, headed for the house. His face was pressed into mission mode as he disappeared through the open screen door to the kitchen.

Aaron pulled his legs up out of shooting position. He traced the shape of the container, pressing it back into his sternum. He didn't want the sharp spike of fear starting in the small of his back and souring his stomach faster than meat gone bad in the desert sun. It was stupid and wrong to the very core of him, because Jason wouldn't do anything to hurt Aaron any more than he would willingly slit his own throat. They were partners. No matter if it was meant to be temporary. They worked together. They trusted like Aaron had never trusted anyone before. Not like this, not as equals. Jason was the knife that guarded Aaron's back. Aaron was the bullet from a hundred yards away in the head of anyone stupid enough to think Jason was alone in this world. They'd been together less than two weeks, but they didn't exactly have time to fuck around with the rules and the caution that normal people did. Time meant less when you were already borrowing it with every breath.

Aaron pressed his forehead to his knees and breathed through the tightness pulling his ribs around his lungs. It was Jason who wanted to see the little pills that transformed Kenneth into Aaron. Not a stranger whose motives were unknown. Not a scientist who might take them away for kicks. He hadn't even tried to touch the container when it made Aaron nervous. That was what let Aaron let his hands hang limply in front of his bent knees rather than curling them into fists.

"Here," Jason had a bottle in his hand when he returned. He poured the contents, clear and licorice smelling, into the plastic cup they kept for drinking water from the bathroom faucet. "Try this."

"What the hell is it," Aaron asked, sniffing carefully. "Smells like candy, but not sweet."

Jason smirked. "It's Fred's stash of aguardiente. The local stuff. Higher alcohol content."

Aaron sipped cautiously. It was alcohol. The sharp taste was distinctive. He did like the licorice flavor that sat on the back of his tongue after the sip. He took a larger mouthful and passed the cup over to Jason. "I've got no tolerance."

"That's the point," Jason said genially, taking a long drink from the cup. "You've never done this before?"

"Gotten drunk, yeah," Aaron drawled out pointedly. He took the cup back and drained the quarter inch of liquid left before holding it out to Jason for a refill. "Drunk with friends for fun. Not in a long time. Not that I can remember clearly."

Jason didn't make the joke, because he knew what Aaron meant. The drugs took memories slowly, sponging away the color, the laughter, the fear, the faces, until you were left with a vague recollection of what had happened but no content, no connection. Aaron thought his memory might be worse than Jason's because of how the chems altered his brain. They hadn't compared directly, too dangerous, but Jason made comments about normal life. Comments Aaron realized he had no reference for. Not for sex, or even drinking without Byer there. Instead he had memories that felt more like dry facts, and no emotional reaction to what he knew.

"Kid, we can't get into any more trouble," Jason pointed out with a wry smile as he watched Aaron swirl the liquor. "You played terrorist in a hotel full of rich, international businessmen to save another asset that shouldn't have needed saving. We're fucked. Might as well get fucked up."

 

Aaron took another sip of the liquor rolling it around his mouth as he passed the cup back to Jason. Byer preferred beer with colorful, paper labels or American bourbon over ice. Aaron wasn't overly fond of either. This liquor was sweeter and spicy. When Jason passed the cup back, Aaron drained it. He leaned back, feeling the sloshing in his stomach as his body tried to remember what do with alcohol.

"You mind?" Jason asked, pulling himself part of the way up the bunk and raising an eyebrow. Aaron moved to the side so Jason could fit on the bunk next to him. Jason settled cross-legged with his back against the wall. He was drinking directly out of the bottle. Obviously his program didn't affect his tolerance as much as Aaron's did. They sat that way slowly working their way through the first quarter of the bottle.

The alcohol was starting to warm up Aaron's skin. He wiggled out of his shirt and tossed it on the floor. Jason reached over and rubbed the bruise on Aaron's bicep from running full tilt through the hotel halls, bouncing off corners and walls to turn sharply. "Nice."

"Shut up, Jase," Aaron muttered, tugging the bottle away and taking a careless, long drink. He spilled a little out of the corner of his mouth. "Shit." Tucking the bottle into the crook of his arm, he wiped at his face. A droplet had made its way onto his neck.

Jason rescued to the bottle, laughing from the quirk of his mouth. "Come here, Aaron," he sighed, tugging up the hem of his own shirt. Aaron crawled over so Jason could use the hem to wipe off his face and neck.

Aaron didn't bother moving back afterwards. Jason's thigh was warm beneath this cheek, and calloused fingers were tracing comfortable shapes over his neck and shoulders. "You really do have no tolerance," Jason mused gently, playing with the hair at the nape of Aaron's neck. Aaron agreed by rubbing his cheek into the rough fabric of Jason's cargo pants. Jason screwed the cap back on the bottle and set it to the side. The movement stirred Aaron's interest. He sat up on his knees to look at Jason.

"Hey." Aaron awkwardly reached out and pressed his hand against Jason's shoulder. "I wasn't going to let you hang alone. You're my partner. They'll have to hang both of us to take one of us."

The stormy expression in Jason's eyes didn't abate. "We're not partners, Aaron. We just work together. We're lone wolves, ghosts with rifles. That's what we're trained for. We're never going to see each other again after this. Especially after this."

Aaron growled in irritation. He lifted his knee, flinging it over Jason's legs so he was straddling the other man's lap. "I don't care. I really do not give a shit what the brass thinks. I say we're partners. Doesn't matter if this is our only mission and the next time we see each other is in hell. You're my partner. Because I fucking trust your sociopathic, temperamental, migraine-prone ass. If that isn't partnership, I don’t want a partner. But I still want you at my back."

"You're drunk," Jason said fondly, bracing Aaron's hips between his palms. Aaron glared. "Yeah, I know. Emotional word vomit from you has nothing to do with alcohol. Fine, we're partners, and we had a good run no matter how short. Or what happens next." He looked at the slightly glassy blue eyes staring directly into his own. "You emotionally manipulative, sneaky little fucker."

Tipping his head back, Aaron laughed. "You know you love me."

Voice quiet and raw, Jason nodded, "Yeah, I do." He looked sadly at the grin on Aaron's face that went all the way to his eyes.

So Aaron kissed him. Not like in the shower where it had been perfunctory and obvious, an act to make a point. Jason was right. Aaron didn't know how to kiss. Instead, he pressed his mouth to Jason's with just enough pressure to keep contact and felt Jason breathe. Jason's fingers slid through the short hair on the back of Aaron's head, holding him in place as Jason pulled back. "This is a bad idea."

"You said it yourself," Aaron replied, not breaking eye contact, "we're fucked. Might as well get fucked up. I'm just putting it on the table. You don't have to pick it up."

"Fuck it." Jason picked up the bottle and took off the top again with his free hand. He tipped his head back, throat working. Aaron leaned back to give him some space. Jason capped the bottle and put it to the side again. Then he gave Aaron a small, fragile smile. It was the first time Aaron had seen Jason use his mouth to show an honest emotion that wasn't cynicism. He leaned in to kiss Aaron. It was wet and awkward and nothing like Aaron thought a real kiss would be. Their teeth clicked making Aaron yelp and jerk away. Jason murmured apologies trying again more slowly as he realized Aaron wasn't kidding about never having practiced. His hands worked the thick muscles of Aaron's shoulders as they breathed with lips still brushing. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Yeah, once before the program," Aaron replied, slightly breathless from the tightness low in his belly. "My buddies got me a hooker before our first deployment. I don't even remember what she looked like. Or which buddies it was. You?"

"I actually get personal downtime," Jason replied, rubbing a thumb over a scar at the base of Aaron's shoulder. "I go out sometimes. Always get a full work-up afterwards. I was clean as of six months ago. No down time since." The scar was deep and ragged. Though it had healed cleanly a divot remained. Wherever the wound had come from, a lot of flesh was missing when it closed.

"So, the docs aren't going to flip out because we gave each other the clap," Aaron clarified. "Thank God, that's one conversation I never want to have with her." He grinned and gave Jason another, dry kiss. Then he stuck his tongue in Jason's mouth for the hell of it. It was more weird than good, but Jason started moaning. So Aaron wiggled his tongue around a little bit until Jason nipped gently to get him to back off. They pulled away. Aaron could feel himself grinning stupidly, but it wasn't like Jason looked any more dignified. 

Aaron slid his fingers beneath the thin cotton of Jason's shirt and pushed it up. There were long white scars across every major vulnerable point. The marks were from training obviously, but they hadn't healed as cleanly as Aaron's own wounds. Slowly, as to not startle Jason, Aaron leaned down and ran his tongue along a long, white mark at the base of Jason's throat. The change in texture was that much more apparent beneath Aaron's tongue. "Do you like that?" Jason asked quietly, running his own tongue up the side of Aaron's throat.

Aaron growled a little, shivering and burying his nose in Jason's neck. "Yeah." He tipped his head to one side with pressure from Jason's cheek against his temple. "You?"  
Jason's teeth nibble gently against the long tendon's stringing Aaron's neck. "I can't feel it. Or at least, I can't feel it as well as you. Kissing feels better." They both had increased pain tolerances, but it was the first time it became apparent that Jason's came with a loss of sensation as well. Sympathetically, Aaron pressed his fingers to the seam at the groin of Jason's cargo pants and rubbed it. Shakily, Jason bit down on the thin skin over Aaron's collar bone. "That I can feel."

A groan pushed itself out from the lowest part of Aaron's throat. "Bastard." He gently scratched at Jason's spine. When nothing happened, he frowned.

Jason gave a soft, dark chuckle and nipped down the line of bone from Aaron's shoulder to the notch in his sternum. "It's okay, Aaron. You being here, letting me manhandle you pretty much does it for me. Rubbing my back feels pretty good. Kissing is good. Better. I can feel it really well. More nerve endings I think." He kissed Aaron again, hard and with tongue. Aaron held his mouth loose and tried not to bite anything important. Jason put a hand on Aaron's jaw, manipulating gently, teaching Aaron how to kiss back the way Jason liked. The pressure was careful, thoughtful, and easy to relax into. It was trust. A good grip at this angle could dislocate Aaron's jaw. Of course, Aaron had his legs around Jason's waist now. The amount of damage they could do to each other from this position was depressing. So Aaron didn't think about it. Instead, he kissed Jason until he saw spots behind his eyelids.

"Can I…" Jason slid his palm underneath Aaron's ass. The other pressed. He frowned a little as he searched for the right words.

"Yeah, yeah," Aaron murmured. He snaked off of Jason's lap, contorting himself so Jason could kneel up. "You sure?"  
Jason rubbed his calloused finger tips across Aaron's lips. Hot air gusted across Jason's skin as Aaron trembled. Nodding, Jason kissed Aaron again. "Yeah. Can I try something?" He took Aaron's smile as an affirmative. It took some more awkward wiggling for Aaron to kneel up as well, hands braced against the wall, back to Jason's chest. A tug of teeth on the shell of Aaron's ear garnered a breathy sigh. Jason ran his hands over Aaron's chest, fingers lingering above the button of Aaron's tactical pants. The skin there just beneath the waistband was hot and soft with damp sweat. Rubbing slow circles dipping in out of the gap between Aaron’s stomach and pants made him breathe slowly through his mouth. A soft nip to the neck started a slow grind as Aaron pressed forward into Jason's touch and back into the nips.

Braced between Jason's arms, every twitch Aaron made, every sharp noise, Jason could feel. It was better than Jason's usual blind-drunk hook-up with some woman who saw his biceps. Aaron's shoulder shifted as he peeled one hand off the wall and reached back to press the freed hand to the back of Jason's head, elbow at an angle like he was doing a shoulder stretch. "Asshole," Aaron murmured breathlessly, fondly.

Hiding a grin in Aaron's neck, Jason finally unbuttoned and unzipped the fly of the tactical pants. Neither of them had bothered with anything but pants and t-shirts after a shower. Aaron whimpered as Jason's thumb traced the tender, swollen vein on the bottom of his dick. It was a soft sound, more happy than desperate, that didn't travel beyond the two of them, and it churned up something in Jason the slow burn hadn't. Both sets of pants came off. The only reason neither one of them fell off the bunk was Aaron's preternatural ability to catch both their weight with one hand . He pulled them back, fully onto the bed, kneeing Jason in the side until he had enough space to flip over. They were eye to eye now, grinning and trying not to laugh too loudly at how ridiculous they were being.

Then it turned into touching and licking with absolutely no finesse or even focus on the eventual goal. Aaron smiled when his mouth wasn't otherwise occupied. His pale eyes glittered a little like he wanted to laugh. But he wouldn't for the same reason he always spoke softly to Fred. Quiet was safe. His caution didn't extend to touch. A saliva slick hand wormed between their bodies. "Tell me if I'm doing it wrong," Aaron whispered. His other hand slid through Jason's hair. Then warm, blunt fingers wrapped loosely and delicately around Jason's dick. Jason bit down on Aaron's shoulder, bucking their hips together, pushing into the grip.

"Tighter," he breathed, kissing a red mark on Aaron's throat. Aaron obliged, and Jason propped himself on his elbow, spitting into his own hand before mirroring Aaron's carefully jerks. They were nose to nose . It was a position Aaron seemed to like based on his affectionate nudging. Hot gusts of air between them started beading their faces with sweat. Some dripped off of Jason's nose and landed on Aaron's cheek. The sensation made Aaron flinch away. "Shh," Jason murmured, pressing opened mouthed kisses where the drops landed.

Aaron's rhythm was stuttering. His eyes went wide and startled. "Jase…"

"Breathe," Jason ordered gently. "It can hit you harder when it's not your own hand." Aaron took in a sharp breath. The convulsion of Aaron's stomach and shoulders was hard enough to make the bunks shake. Jason pressed his partner down into the mattress to make sure Aaron didn't accidently tip them off the bunk as he orgasmed. It very nearly pulled Jason's shoulder to do it. The strain of holding Aaron down and the way Aaron's pupils were blown wide, almost scared, was enough for Jason to finish himself with a few, hard strokes. He started to roll off. Aaron's limbs locked around him.

"No," Aaron muttered, "cuddling, now, Bourne."

Jason was startled into a laugh. He let his weight rest fully on Aaron, confident he couldn't damage his partner by deadweight alone. Their skin was too sweaty to get sticky. Aaron hugged Jason tightly and nuzzled into the other man's shoulder with a contented sigh. "We're dead," Jason pointed out gently, threading the fingers of the hand he'd extracted from between their bodies through Aaron's hair. Aaron didn't seem to care about the mess Jason was spreading through the sweaty strands.

"Yeah," Aaron said more coherently than before. "But it was sure as hell more fun than thinking about the bullet waiting on the other side."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All praise to Julorean who had to wade through this beast first. She also came up with the brilliant idea that the chems can be dissolved under the tongue. (Like nitroglycerin apparently. Who knew?)


	24. Keeping My Secrets Safe (for Tonight)

Byer gently levered Mandy out of her office chair. She kept her arms stiff - that way she wouldn't wrinkle his shirt by grabbing on. "I'm good," she said, yawning. It was cut short by a wince as she straightened her spine. Byer was right behind her again with a hand over the surgery scar he'd paid for. "Sir," she said firmly. He grimaced and backed off.

"Are you good for this meeting?" He asked as he gathered the stack of papers he'd been making notes on.

Mandy finger-combed her hair into a ponytail to hid the limpness from not showering in thirty-six hours. "If I don't show, Conklin will see it as a sign of weakness. Change your shirt."

"Yes, Captain," Byer said blandly, grabbing his laptop bag. "Call a driver, and get more coffee. I'll meet you in the garage." Mandy rolled her eyes at him, but pulled out her cell phone.

Everyone who worked for Byer kept a spare change of clothing around. Byer kept a closet full of clean business attire in his office. He exchanged his white button down for a blue oxford, smoothing the bottom into his slacks. He could hear Ingram snoring from the cubicle down the hallway. He'd passed out as soon as Mandy had approved the report. The woman he'd brought in to assist had called a cab home hours ago. Vendel was still tapping away like a demented woodpecker on his keyboard. 

Before Byer abandoned his office and locked the door, he slipped two cold packs and washcloths into his briefcase. In Iraq, he and Mandy had used ice cubes wrapped in cotton scraps to lessen the puffiness and red veining around the eyes which came with sleepless nights. They had upgraded to a reusable system back in civilization.

Mandy had requisitioned one of the ubiquitous black SUVs with government plates and an off-duty security guard to act as a driver. Byer tossed her one of the clothes and cold packs as he slid into the backseat next to her. She gave him a small nod of gratitude before activating the pack. "What's our unofficial opinion on Outcome Five fraternizing?" she asked as she wrapped up the pack, tipped her head back to rest on the seat, and laid the cold pack over her eyes. She'd revised the reports and was intimately familiar with the official stance.

Byer cracked his own cold pack and settled himself in for the ride as well. "I was expecting him to make friends. It wasn't a far jump from making friends to playing at being in love," he mused. "It certainly saves us the work of having to arrange his first test run for him."

"The fact your asset is going around breaking regs with a sociopathic CIA assassin doesn't disturb you at all?" Mandy asked dryly. "You've read Bourne's profile."

"Our boy got a program-trained sociopath to /break the rules/ for him," Byer pointed out, his smirk audible. "Proof of concept, Captain. Now all we have to do is make it intentional instead of him using people to patch over the fact he's missing us. I don't really give a shit what those fat, white, old assholes at the CIA think. We're going to ease Aaron out gently, not punish him for doing exactly what he was trained to. If we can, we salvage Bourne too and let Aaron see us doing it." He paused and heard the weight of Mandy's uncertain silence. "Dita, you start asking an asset to weight his decisions towards his affection for you, you've got to feed everything else as well. If you don’t, he will. He's male, fully functional, and we just gave him a shiny new grown-up brain to play with. He was going to start fucking around eventually. At least Bourne will survive any communication break-downs."

Mandy made a face even though Byer couldn't see it. She had seen Outcome Five calmly tear through the most vicious training partners with the empty surety of an implacable force. What he could do if an untrained sexual partner startled him wasn't worth contemplating. "Point taken." She didn't ask, 'Why not you?' because she knew the answer. Eric Byer never claimed to be a kind man. He was a brass-bound asshole, but he was a good man. Any sexual relationship with an asset would be an abuse of trust, and power, abhorrent to him. She just tried to forget about the blue-grey tie she'd seen in Byer's bag. He would need a tie and jacket for this meeting. If it was that specific tie, so be it.

The CIA liked playing on their home court. They thought it gave them an advantage. So Byer let them have it. The more confident spooks felt, the more they slipped up. The building Abbott had appropriated for the meeting was an upscale townhouse. Byer and Mandy left the cold packs and clothes in the car. Mandy replaced her usual bland flats with an equally bland pair of kitten heels. She slipped a low-dose oxytocin under her tongue to dissolve. Her back hated even low heels. Byer had done up his tie in a half-Windsor and was wearing an actual suit jacket rather than his usual sport jacket. It was all part of the shell game.

A young, busty secretary in a black suit and stilettos answered the door. "This way," she said disinterestedly. Byer tucked a polite hand beneath Mandy's elbow. Ward and Conklin were waiting in a sitting room out of a magazine. A carafe of French-press coffee steamed the air with a rich, invitingly bitter scent. Four chairs were set up, two on either side of the coffee table. Abbot and Conklin had taken the two chairs on the far side of the table. A cup and saucer sat in front of Abbot half-empty. The secretary gestured Byer and Mandy in before closing the decorative glass doors.

Mandy didn't look at Byer. No matter how much she wanted the confidence that came from a silent conversation. Instead she took Byer's bag and extracted the laptop as Byer pulled off his jacket and settled into one of the chairs. "Morning," Byer said coolly, nodding to the other two men. Mandy finished getting Byer's laptop set up on the coffee table and took the other chair.

"Morning, Rick," Abbot said with an oily smile. "Coffee, tea? Charlene is bringing breakfast after the café opens."

"Thank you," Byer replied crisply, pouring Mandy a cup of coffee then one for himself. "You should have received our report electronically this morning. I think we addressed the majority of the issues brought up by your handler."

Conklin opened his mouth but was interrupted before he could put his foot in it. "I'm just wondering why you aren't displaying any concern over your man's… tendencies," Abbott said with pointed delicacy. "There was nothing in his profile to predict this kind of behavior."

"Outcome Five," Byer replied evenly, used to the indirect digs, "is different than the other Outcome subjects. He's a new generation of surgical strike asset, not a long term undercover operative. Our previous work, such as Treadstone, has been able to pass to a point. Long term interactions or even wrong set of circumstances have the blown the covers of several old gen assets. Outcome Five overcomes these problems very simply." Byer paused to make sure he had both Abbott and Conklin's full attention. "He mirrors what people want. Not completely of course. What the Russians did to produce the effect was too extreme for our purposes. Outcome Five's conditioning is subtler. The core personality remains intact. It's his reactions to other people that are adjusted. When he's with his trainers he's content. Treadstone Two is lonely. So Outcome Five responds by developing a friendship with him. Physical relationships are a very important show of trust. Also, there's a precedent as old as time for securing alliances with sex."

"With women," Conklin interrupted with a scowl.

Byer snarled sharply, startling the two CIA men, "Don't be naïve. Modern, Christianized, western society is just that. We're already destroying that socialization when we start programming behavior." He let his voice level out. Abbott looked amused. Conklin was taken aback. "All Outcome subjects are flexible. It's part of the conditioning. Their personal preferences are their own, but phobias are discouraged. Male or female, if there was an advantage to it, Outcome Five would have bonded with any asset he was paired with based on the other asset's level of comfort. Which, if Treadstone Four had been there, we wouldn't be having this ridiculous conversation."

"I suppose," Abbott replied noncommittally. "That doesn't change the fact our handler was almost forced to invoke a Blackbriar contingency because of the relationship."

Mandy didn't let herself flinch. Outcome fell under the Blackbriar contingency just barely. It was an asset management system NRAG had cooked up at least a generation of specialized assets ago. The CIA had run with the system and turned it into Operation Blackbriar which covered several different groups of assets, with the focus on projects like Treadstone. It hadn't been more than a theory when NRAG had surrendered it. God only knew what hydra-like monstrosity the CIA had twisted it into. Technically, Outcome Five would fall under Operation Blackbriar while working with the CIA, even though he belonged to NRAG. With as raw as Byer's newest asset was, there was a good chance he wouldn't be able to avoid the contingency long enough for NRAG to extract him. It was a death sentence.

"That's your policy, not ours," Byer pointed out coolly. "Outcome Five was never briefed on your rules and regs. Do you really want start this again, Abbott? Over a couple of kids who don't have anything but their hands and each other to fuck. What's the real problem?"

Abbott pulled a folder out of his own briefcase. "Bourne was being tracked by two suspected GRU assets. We have no idea why." The lie was only noticeable because Byer knew that Abbott did it every time he breathed. "Your boy managed to blow any chance we had at questioning them." The folder contained a series of photos which spoke for themselves. It was a mark of the Rasar's thoroughness Aaron's face was never visible. There were no good images of the faces of either of the GRU assets. The woman had red hair. That Mandy did hiss at. Though Conklin looked pretty ill too. "They ran for the Russian consulate leaking blood the whole way after meeting Outcome Five."

"Bourne didn't know about them, did he?" Byer bit back his snarl just in time. Abbott shook his head. Conklin just scowled. "Jesus fucking Christ, what kind of circus are you running in South America to get the Russians to pay attention? Actually, strike that, I don't want to know. You let my man into your mission without telling anyone else what was going on, and he blew your super-secret side-job when he ID'ed two foreign operatives." He didn't bother to hide either the scorn or the sarcasm in his voice. "So now you're trying to find an excuse to punish him using fraternization as justification. You're the one who fast-tracked that handler's complaint. Which shouldn't have ever gone beyond Conklin and Mandy." Conklin looked startled, shooting a nervous glance at Abbott. He honestly hadn't known about Abbott's game.

Mandy's fingers twitched as she glanced between Byer and Abbott. Conklin didn't even matter anymore. Unlike Byer, Abbott didn't feel the need to read in his second in command. NRAG now had the advantage. Useless adrenaline crackled through her body. She kept her hands steady as she reached out and took the laptop and the pictures. It gave her a moment to gather herself. Byer stood, straightening his jacket. "We're not dancing, Ward. Put my man on a plane tonight. And I won't start asking Ezra what you're doing playing Cold War spy games with Russians off the books. In fact, if you pull out Bourne, I might forget the nationality of these foreign operatives entirely when NRAG archives its report."

Abbott was still smiling, but it was the strained smile of a man smelling something rotting. "I'm sure we can arrange something."

Byer discretely offered Mandy an elbow to let her up after she'd repacked the computer bag with the new file. "Put Outcome Five on a flight to Dubai and give him a burner phone. Text me the number."

"I'll do that," Abbott agreed amiably. "It's too bad you and Mrs. Mandy can't stay for breakfast. The local café does really good bagels."

"We'll live," Byer said crisply. "Contact Mandy if you need any clarification about the report. Otherwise, I think we've closed the book on this incident."

Abbott smirked unpleasantly. "And why should I re-direct to your secretary?"

Byer's eyes narrowed. "You can speak to my proxy since I'm going to be in Pakistan cleaning up MI-6's mess as a favor to one of Ezra's old friends. So I've had it for the next month with the CIA's shit, Ward. Don't fuck with me." He didn't bother with pleasantries, striding out of the room. Mandy fell in step as she followed him out. Byer waited until they were safely back in the car to snarl, "Shit. I'm sorry to spring that on you. I only got the email this morning."

"It's fine, sir," Mandy sighed, wincing as she buckled herself in. "They aren't going to want to dig. Not after you called them out. Conklin will be too busy licking his own wounded ego to cause any problems. I'll get Lisa to book your flight. Then I'm going home. My husband hasn't seen me for going on three days."

"How's he doing?" Byer asked, closing his eyes and leaning back into his seat.

"Still on nightshift at the plant. He's working as the safety officer now," Mandy replied with a fond smile. "Jeff is coming for a visit next month. You should stop by the house."

"Did he make the draft?" Byer asked with honest curiosity.

"Yes. The Flyers just like he hoped," Mandy replied proudly. "He set aside some tickets for you."

Byer smiled a weary, honest grin, "Something to look forward to. I'll drop by and see him." He'd bought Jeff his first hockey stick back when Mandy had been crying, discretely, in the desert because she couldn't afford new hockey gear for her sons and couldn't even hug them to say sorry. Of the three, only Jeff had ever made it professionally. The twins had both become teachers, one elementary, one junior high, and coached their schools' hockey teams. They were too young to understand what it meant when the sticks and pads had arrived via mail order. Jeff was just old enough to understand that the cold man on the crackling phone line he had to thank was his benefactor. Byer had continued to outfit Jeff through the juniors until his first professional contract with the Adirondack Phantoms. Even then, Byer had still supplemented when he could get away with it. "Have Lisa tell the new girl to put a visit with Jeff and at least one game into my schedule. Make sure it's the same game you and your husband are going to."

Pulling out her phone, Mandy began tapping. "Yes, sir. Catch some sleep. I'll arrange everything." A low, bemused chuckle answered her slightly imperious command.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed by Julorean. This is my attempt to tie together lots of things in one chapter. For those of you who don't read Clancy religiously, the GRU is the Russian military intelligence organization. MI-6 is British intelligence.
> 
> The Flyers are the Philadelphia Flyers, as in hockey. Disclaimer: Not actually my team. Just conveniently placed for the story.
> 
> Title from The Spy that Loved Me.


	25. Just for One Day

Aaron slept on the plane. It wasn't a restful sleep. The pills knocked him out and kept him that way through the whole flight. The woman who Fred had handed him over to sat next to him reading _Das Neue Blatt_ , a German celebrity gossip rag. She was nowhere near as empty-headed as her choice of reading materials made her seem.

Sabin Scholz was actually a chemical engineering graduate student with a focus in biochemistry at the Technische Universität Münche - the Technical University of Munich. Her finances had been thin when she'd taken a gap year to make money for school as a paid intern with Sterisyn-Morlanta. It was there Dr. Ingram, a consultant she assisted, had heard about her situation and spoken to his boss. Now, Sabine had a steady income from a research project at a small, American university who employed her (whenever academics didn't interfere) to fetch and carry. 

Usually, she just carried marked, legal, biological samples which weren't trusted to the post. Occasionally, she met with someone, a scientist, and accompanied them as an assistant to a conference. Part of her job there was keeping track of everything the scientist said and everyone he or she came into contact with. Escorting someone, babysitting really, without a technical background was unusual, but her instructions were clear.

The man who called himself Aaron had met her at the airport in Bogota. He'd been accompanied by an older man who'd given her the appropriate paperwork and pills along with specifics. She wasn't to give Aaron her name nor was she to let him out of her sight. The older man had also given her a phone with a speed dial number to call in case Aaron did slip away. Aaron apparently had a phobia or neurosis of some kind as the pills were tranquilizers meant to help him sleep through the flights. The pills would make Aaron groggy between connections. This was where Sabine came in. She was to help him make it safely through the complex series of international flights, make sure his paperwork was in order, and generally attend to the mundane details the drugs made cloudy.

The man, who Sabine decided was some kind of handler, was obviously unhappy and nervous about handing over his charge to a young woman. Sabine had done her best to be professional and reassuring. It helped that Aaron, who only acknowledged her with a small smile when his handler introduced him, was busy watching the crowds around them with a dull expression. He didn't seem at all dangerous. If anything, he reminded her of impaired students during her early schooling . It gave her a framework for interaction. She gave Aaron a firm, but kind, smile and reassured the handler she was quite confident in her ability to take care of Aaron.

Aaron was easy. He'd taken his pills without a fuss, and Sabine had been careful not to touch him without warning, especially during blood draws, and to make sure others gave him space just like his handler suggested. He didn't talk except to tell her when he need to use the bathroom or wanted a drink. Her questions about his comfort were answered with shrugs, nods, and head shakes. It made it easy not to tell him anything. The pills did make him thirsty. So she bought him overpriced bottles of water with the pre-loaded credit card she used for the job. In Zurich, they had a layover of several hours. There were other pills, low level sedatives, which kept Aaron dopey but allowed him to be conscious if he wanted to. He chose to remain in the impaired, partially conscious state. It was only then he reached out for Sabine, startling her.

"Are you okay, Aaron?" she asked carefully, putting aside another of her trashy magazines. She kept a stock just for these long flights. They were good for relaxing her brain between catching up on technical journals.

His eyes were glassy from the drugs. It didn't detract from his oddly attractive face . Aaron wasn't conventionally handsome, but he was fit and had a nice smile to go with pleasantly boyish features. Sabine didn't mind the old women giving them approving smiles when Aaron asked quietly, "Can I lean against you? I'm cold." He was wearing a long sleeved cotton shirt, cargo pants, and had a jacket which he wasn't using.

Sabine assumed the cold was more psychological than physiological since Aaron hadn't pulled on his jacket and was coherent enough to ask permission. "You may," she said in the measured tone of her Year Six instructor. His cheek was almost uncomfortably warm against her shoulder. With a frown she asked, "Do you feel okay, Aaron? Are you feeling sick?"

"I run hot," Aaron murmured into her shirt. His cheek was rubbing against the fabric unconsciously. The nuzzling felt a little odd, but Sabine thought it was the same instinct as a tired child searching for comfort. Aaron's hands stayed politely on his knees. His nose stayed precisely against the edge of her shoulder. It was far sweeter than it should have been especially when paired with Aaron's sleepy smile.

Aaron slipped the phone he'd palmed into the calf pocket of his cargo pants. It was the woman's personal cell, not the burner phone Fred had given her. She smelled faintly of the clean, botanical aroma expensive bath products left. He wouldn't mind just leaning against her and breathing it in even if he didn't need the phone . The drugs were working just as planned. There was no way Aaron could make a clean lift on a stranger with his reaction time now. So he took the risk. It was better than not knowing.

To make sure she hadn't noticed, he just sat with his face against her shoulder for a thousand count. The only move she made was to trade her German gossip magazine for a scholarly looking magazine in the same language. 

"I need to pee," Aaron mumbled, slurring the words severely. "Help me up?"

The woman gave him another matronly smile and said, "Yes, of course, Aaron. Do you need help getting there?"

"No, I'm fine," Aaron said with the sober sureness of the completely stoned. He leaned heavily against the woman as he stood. She lifted with her legs as well and held him in place to reassure herself he was steady before she would let him walk forward.

"You have five minutes," she said firmly, directing him towards the men's restroom with a gentle shove. "Any more and I'll come check, okay? I’m right out here. Shout if you need me."

Aaron nodded obediently and walked into the restroom, occasionally correcting his swerving path by bumping against the wall. Inside the men's room, he ducked into a stall, shutting the door and leaning on it. Then he pulled out the phone. He didn't know for sure how long it had been since he'd left Bogota. They'd come for Jason first. A pair of men in plain clothes had sedated Jason and put him into the back of a black SUV. Aaron had let it happen, because there was no point in fighting. Fred mouthed soothing things about safety precautions when handling specialized assets. Byer reassured Aaron over Aaron's new cell phone that both assets had been forgiven and declared not compromised before the pick-up. But it had still turned Aaron's stomach to see Jason go limp and do nothing. Byer had stayed on the phone with Aaron until the SUV was out of sight. It was the only thing that had kept Aaron from going off reservation.

Carefully, Aaron punched in the number he'd found in the white pages when his handler went to get them a snack during the last layover. Jason had been very specific about the company name when they'd been enjoying the post-sex biochemical cocktail. The company was international and specialized in discretely passing messages between rich business men and their mistresses. There was a toll-free line in most major cities. The owner of the account paid the fee separate so it wouldn’t appear on the phone bill. It wasn't a bad place for a verbal dead-drop between a pair of government-trained killers. A man with a faint accent picked up, "Yes?"

"I'm Brian Gamble . Jean-Pierre should have left a message. Password pantera," Aaron said, careful to keep his voice crisp. The name matched the one on his passport, Brian Aaron Gamble. Aaron’s current paperwork was just burner documents. Jason had picked out the name when he’d helped Fred put all of it together.

The man's tone was a little warmer when he replied, "Jean-Pierre says 'good luck , and don't do anything stupid. C'est le vie, kiddo.'"

Aaron closed his eyes and took a deep, relieved breath. "Thanks. Tell him Bri says, 'You too. See you on the flip side, sweetheart.'"

"Is that all, sir?" the man asked mildly.

"Yeah," Aaron said roughly, swallowing. "Yeah. Thanks." He hung up and took a moment just to breathe. The stinking, antiseptic smell of the restroom provided little relief. It took Aaron only a moment to decipher the cell menu enough to delete the record of his call. Then he emptied his bladder because the part of him that remembered Afghanistan insisted there was no guarantee of plumbing wherever he was going.

His new handler didn't even look up as he stumbled back to her side. A carefully timed unbalanced tumble on the way back to their seats let him slip the phone into her jacket pocket. Aaron slumped back into the faux leather chair and closed his eyes. He fell into a breathing exercise, loosening one muscle group at a time. The few fiction books he'd read made a big deal out of a person's first lover. Now Aaron knew why. It hurt differently than losing the Rasar. After her, he'd felt like a dybbuk from one of the Rasar's stories had slipped in next to his soul. If Byer hadn't been there, Aaron knew he would have killed someone just to try to make the emptiness go away.

Losing Jason didn't make him want to scream until he was hoarse. He didn't look around the airport and see targets. Instead, his diaphragm ached like the lingering effect of a bad blow to the solar plexus. More annoying than painful. At the same time, Jason's smile wasn't something Aaron was ever going to forget. Romeo and Juliet had nothing on the real thing if what he and Jason did was just fun. Not that the play had much to do with love in the first place in Aaron's opinion. 

"That's our flight, Aaron," his handler said brightly. "I'm going to help you up now." Aaron relaxed as she levered him to his feet. There were more pills, his green and blue included, and a cup of water. A few bites of power bar kept his stomach settled. His handler stroked his hair a little to settle him as they took off. Her neat, groomed nails scratched pleasantly against his scalp until he dozed off. When he woke up, he was draped awkwardly over a couch meant more for looks than comfort, and the sunlight outside made his low-grade dehydration headache turn into a full, pounding hangover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, all praise to Julorean who made this readable.
> 
> A co-worker of mine still reads Das Neue Blatt online. It's basically People from what I understand. A dybbuk is a demon pretty much. It shows up in the kind of children's stories the Rasar might tell.
> 
> Finally, Romeo and Juliet is part of the American educational experience. Wouldn't it strike you as odd if you met someone who'd never heard of it? Aaron would have read it as part of his re-medial education.


	26. Blue Eyes Crying

Byer didn't realize Aaron was awake until a tan hand snaked past his shoulder to grab the bottle of water at his elbow. He turned and watched his agent drain the bottle so fast the plastic crumpled from the vacuum. "How do you feel?" he asked, managing to suppress his flinch.

"Better now," Aaron replied hoarsely. "Thank you, sir." He tossed the bottle in the trash and took the second one Byer had pulled from the fridge beneath the desk with a grateful smile. When he'd drained the second bottle, he stuck his head under the faucet and drenched his aching head in cold water. His t-shirt was getting in the way. So he pulled it off and used it to mop his face dry.

Byer’s chuckled, "Jesus Christ," caused Aaron to glance up at the mirror. His cheeks turned bright red as he saw the patchy bruising at the base of his throat. Tilting sideways showed that the marks continued down his shoulders several inches. They didn't look like training bruises at all. "I'm wondering if I need to warn the CIA one of their assets is a vampire," Byer said, voice thick with gentle amusement. He moved up slowly behind Aaron. "Let's see the extent of the damage." His fingers were cool and firm against Aaron's back. Aaron leaned against the sink, relaxing into the light first aid. The damage was pretty minor, mostly hickies with a few scratches from nails digging in. Byer still dabbed peroxide into the cuts, mostly healed, before patting Aaron's shoulder. Superficial wounds didn’t heal as quickly as more severe ones for some reason in Aaron’s experience. The cleaning wasn’t necessary, but it was nice.

"Sir," Aaron asked hesitantly. He had Jason's message, but it wasn’t a guarantee. Just a hope. "Can I ask about him?"

Byer sighed, pursing his lips. "I badgered the CIA into seeing it my way. He's fine. Back in Europe, on the job."  
Aaron smiled in relief. "Thank you, sir," he said with honest joy. "For saving him. And me."

With the usual care, Byer reached up to ruffle Aaron's hair. "You're mine, Cross. The CIA can kiss my ass. Especially when I have to stop them from wasting their own resources. Do you want any food?" His smirk got a much softer, sweeter mirror from Aaron. "Actually, you probably need some to shake the last of the drugs. The lamb's good at least." He picked up the menu and handed it to Aaron.

They were in Dubai. Aaron's eyes went wide. It was a long way from Zurich, a lot of time to loose. "Lamb is fine," Aaron said, handing the menu back. "I assume this isn't our final stop?"

"No. You're coming to Pakistan with me. MI-6 fucked up. I need a translator. You'll double nicely as a bodyguard," Byer explained as he dialed room service. "Hello, yes two of the lamb dinners for room 223. Thank you." He hung up the phone with a clack of plastic. "How's your Urdu."

"Fluent, if you can get over the accent," Aaron responded promptly. Wryly he continued, "I still sound like I was born outside of Kandahar no matter what Indo-Iranian language I'm trying speak."

"You were ," Byer replied, shepherding Aaron over to the bed with hand at the small of the asset's back. "Dossier's on the laptop. Read it, memorize the names and faces. I want to see how good your memory really is. There will be a test. We won't have VPN access out there. Time to see if you can be a rolodex as well."

The bed was far more comfortable than the couch. Aaron wiggled his toes into the high-thread count cotton with a happy sigh. Byer, military man he was, had taken off Aaron's socks as well. Aaron's feet also felt dry and clean for how long he'd been on a plane. The affection, no matter how clinical, helped ease the empty space at Aaron's side. Byer had cleaned, dried, and powdered Aaron's feet then patched up his cuts once he'd seen the damage. The room was slightly chilly from the AC. So Aaron tucked his legs towards himself as he began working through the list of pictures.

Shirtless and with red marks across his neck, Aaron looked harmless curled in the rumpled sheets with the laptop propped on his knees. Byer continued scrolling through the report on his tablet, but his attention was focused on his agent. Aaron seemed to be handling the separation well. It had been as gentle as Byer had been able to arrange. His greater concern had been Bourne de-stabilizing at the threat of losing his support system. The fact Aaron had challenged the CIA's handler proved that he was recovering from the Rasar's death. Bourne doing the same thing proved the Treadstone programming had degraded. The increased flexibility within the programs was even more dramatic with the side-by-side comparison they now had.

Mandy had sent the summary analysis of the interactions between Jason and Aaron the bugs had picked up. Puppy love on Aaron's part seemed to be the consensus. Innocent enough with few repercussions for Aaron. Especially since the break between Aaron and Jason had been as definitive as the end of summer for teenagers. Ingram suspected Jason's attachment might go deeper, but that was the CIA's problem. They were the ones who isolated him completely in the first place. The summary of the intimate moments had the reserved distance of Mandy's touch. She was sure that the sex had not only been completely consensual, both parties had been enthusiastic. Apparently, they'd broken the bunks. Byer had to bite back a chuckle. At least it was only some minor cracking, not an actual structural failure. The whole thing seemed to be the average, fumbling, affectionate encounter of a pair of intelligent teenagers. Or men who never had a chance to learn how to have an adult relationship.

Byer glanced over at Aaron to reassure himself the CIA's pet killer hadn't damaged the younger man. He'd repressed his personal reservations about the relationship for professional reason, but it hadn't escaped him how badly things could have gone if Jason hadn't proven capable of reciprocating. Aaron, for how dangerous he was, had little experience with interpersonal relationships outside of the training he'd received. They'd done little to suppress his inclination towards seeking out affection. Jason could have hurt him, but it was a calculated risk they'd had to take. The time Aaron had spent in South America allowed for the assembly of a full, water-tight story to explain what had happened to the Rasar. One that didn't include the chain of emails they'd found on her personal computer with a prominent Israeli virologist. Or the second set of emails with the registrar's office at Ben-Gurion University from Haddassah Levi about her son Aaron.

Byer didn't know what favors she'd cashed in, but Aaron Levi was enrolled in the Linguistics program there despite the fact he knew Aaron didn't speak a word of Hebrew. Byer had been very specific about what would happen to both Landshuth and Aaron if she tried. There was a bank account waiting there as well. Not that the Israelis would ever let them find out how much was in it. Byer assumed enough to cushion Aaron through college and to a job hidden deep within Israel's borders. Esther Landshuth was nothing if not thorough when making back-up plans. The booby-traps she'd left among her possessions and in her computer had slowed the discovery process painfully. If she hadn't been forced to expose herself to get Aaron out, she would have been in the wind the second she left the Virginia property.

The packet Ingram and Vendel had assembled was in Byer's bag. It very selectively presented the evidence Mandy had found. Logistically, it was far easier to trade Aaron to the Israeli government for a clean slate. They didn't even have to fabricate evidence to prove it. No fabrication meant no holes for Aaron to build doubts in . When the agent was ready, the story would be air-tight and make him cling to the program that much harder.

The food came, and Aaron cleared his plate and still ate everything Byer had left on his. It seemed that the specialized shakes were no longer necessary. They spent a few more hours in companionable silence studying their respective screens. Aaron had slipped his feet beneath the blanket to keep them warm. Byer was seriously considering joining him on the bed. Night came quickly in the desert and sucked the heat from the air. Still, the air conditioning churned away, preparing to battle the next sunrise.  
Aaron looked up, realizing his was being observed. "Sir?"

"You feel confident with those faces?" Byer inquired neutrally.

"Yeah," Aaron said, pushing the laptop to the side. He pushed his fingers through his hair and reached for his cup of tea which came with dinner, the thick, black local kind with enough sugar to make it taste like syrup. It had gone cold, but he finished it in a large swallow anyway. Rolling the thin, cylindrical glass the tea had come in between his fingers, Aaron watched Byer back. "Sir, last time we talked…"

Byer nodded. He'd been expecting this, but Aaron had to settle before he'd want to talk about private matters. The file was half an inch thick, heavy on the graphics to make it easier for Aaron to read. It weighed a lot more than it should have as Byer walked across the room and handed it Aaron. "This is the official report. At least the parts of it you’re cleared for. I thought it would be easier than hearing it from me."

"Thanks, sir," Aaron said, swallowing hard as he saw the first page, the autopsy report. Byer already knew it what it said. Death by gunshot wound to the head followed by a laundry list of other severe trauma. The medical examiner also noted other abnormalities which Byer had left in. They wouldn't give Aaron anything useful, but it would add to the verisimilitude. Esther Landshuth had old, small surgical scars that twisted around her sides from an oophorectomy back before fiber optics. Her back teeth on the left side were false. The dental restoration was impeccable. It was a hundred details of a violent life in black and white. Aaron traced the words with his index finger in a habit he should have been trained out of by his tutor.

The Rasar's name was Esther Landshuth. Aaron wanted to laugh a little, because he'd never known it before. But it sounded like a name she should have. Rav samal rishon Esther Landshuth, last billeted with Aman, the Israeli military intelligence service, before she was repudiated by her own country and the world. She had survived stateless on forged passports, mostly British. He wasn't surprised. Her English had always been the crisp, standard British layered with the Hebrew inflections. There wasn't much more to say in the thin introduction. The Rasar, and her former employer, had buried the rest too deep for even NRAG to find. Aaron was probably the only person still living who could tie Esther Landshuth to the name she was born with. After all, he knew her grandmother's maiden name and how her family came to Israel. It was more than anyone else still living had to work with.

About half the pages were dedicated to pictures of the Rasar's quarters and documents from her hard drive. Her emails filled in most of the blanks. She'd been corresponding with an Israeli virologist. The translations were rough, full of parenthetical alternative meanings, but the point was brutally clear. The Rasar was old. She wanted to die at home, and she had the perfect thing to barter for a future in Israel at her beck and call. Aaron closed the folder without finishing the report. He stared off into space weighing the folder in his hands. "Mateezey." The papers scattered over the floor of the hotel with a soft swoshing noise as the file collided with the wall.

Byer was on the bed next to him, pinning Aaron's shoulder back to the headboard. "I'm sorry," Byer said quietly, catching Aaron's eye. "I thought we could trust her. I was wrong, and she nearly fucked you over."

Aaron sniffed a little, rubbing at his now wet nose with the back of his hand. He was Aaron fucking Cross, Outcome's best. Jason Bourne from the CIA was his best friend. He was so far away from that stupid, unlovable, clingy boy no one would recognize him. But right then, as he pawed at his eyes like the tears might stop if he just pressed hard enough, he felt like nothing more than Kenneth Kitsom. Stupid, dull, useless Kenneth who was only good to be the butt of a joke. Who was only worth liking as long as he could do something for you. Aaron wanted to be angry. He was. His gut burned with the nauseous desire to put another bullet through the bitch, but mostly he wanted her alive so he could know why. He wanted to know what he'd done, or hadn't done, to make him worse than expendable in her eyes.

When Aaron turned into Byer's shoulder to hide his tears, face red with shame, Byer wrapped a lean, strong arm around his shoulders and pulled him in tight. "It's okay, kid," Byer said quietly, the echo of Jason's weariness in his voice. "I'm so sorry, Aaron." He rocked them slowly using his whole body to move since Aaron was so heavy. No one had ever held Kenneth when he cried, not like this. There just hadn't been time to calm another special needs child when he would just cry himself out if left alone.

Crying was exhausting. The drugs had masked the effects last time. Now, Aaron slumped over Byer's chest nursing his second headache for the day and trying not to doze off. Byer was tugging gently at Aaron's short hair which helped ease the tension behind Aaron's eyes. His hand moved slowly down to Aaron's hip, pushing carefully to roll Aaron to the side. "You need to sleep." Unsaid was how dangerous it would be for Byer to be in contact with Aaron as he slept. There was too great a risk of Aaron doing something unfortunate while half-awake and startled.

With more kindness than Aaron thought an old military man would have, Byer pulled up a chair. Aaron sat up to watch, startled as Byer chivvied him to move beneath the blankets. "On your stomach," the older man ordered crisply, turning off the lights. He settled into his chair as Aaron tucked an arm beneath the cool pillow.  
With a hiss, Aaron almost startled out of the bed as a warm hand settled on his shoulder through the blanket. 

"Easy, soldier," Byer said, patting a few times. "Get some rest. I'll be here when you wake up."

"Yes, sir," Aaron whispered, nuzzling into the pillow. He missed Jason so badly his dinner churned uneasily in his stomach. Hot water and Jason's shoulder would have softened the impact of knowing what his life was worth. At least Jason was back on the job though. Aaron could comfort himself with the knowledge he was a few thousand miles away rather than dead in a ditch.

As if he could feel Aaron's restlessness, though Aaron had kept still, Byer's thumb began tracing a hypnotic circle across the broad plane of Aaron's shoulder. "Breathing exercises, Aaron. We've got an early start tomorrow," the officer chided gently. The heavy muscles beneath his hand began to rise and fall in the measured rhythms Aaron had been trained to follow. Spikes of low level sedatives had been used while Aaron was in training to incorporate an element of conditioning in the breathing exercises. It didn't take long for Aaron to doze off as Byer matched the movements of his fingers to the rhythm Aaron was taught to breathe to. The psychological short-cut had Aaron settled in a matter of minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean.


	27. We're Coming out of the Kitchen

There had been more than one reason Byer left so publicly. Ward Abbott wasn't immune from Conklin's misogyny. He was smart enough to be polite to Mandy's face, but he discounted her where it mattered. Wills was spineless as a jellyfish, if not well placed for her purposes. Still, she called his home phone and left a message with Jean, his wife, that his old friend Dita wanted to have coffee and get a professional opinion from him. Noah Vosen had wanted Abbott's directorship for years. Like all things in the CIA, a power-play like that required dirt. As Vosen's PA, Wills would have access to the information.

Then, Mandy deferred to the most powerful force in the intelligence community. She called the florist and the Aberdeen Barn of Virginia Beach to make reservations on Byer's credit card. After securing a table for two with a bouquet and chocolates waiting on it, she called Lisa's husband. "I need a favor, Sadaf."

Sadaf Mulroney - he'd taken Lisa's surname - sighed deeply, pushing away from his desk at the Boeing experimentation center in Suffolk. "And to what do I owe the pleasure this time, Captain Mandy."

"I need your wife's help with something. You've got a five hundred dollar tab at the Aberdeen Barn tonight. I got the usual order from the florists. Take her out and show her a good time, Sadaf." Mandy scrolled through the emails she'd received from one of her old friends who now worked as an analyst for the NSA.

"Why does she put up with you assholes?" Sadaf asked in the resigned tone of a man who knew his wife actually liked her direct employer. "Fine. Thanks for the date night, Captain." He slammed his phone down as he hung up.  
Mandy rolled her eyes. Lisa's husband didn't always approve of the extracurriculars Mandy sent her on, but Lisa was a grown woman who enjoyed the thrill. Administrative personnel knew far more than people gave them credit for. It was amazing how often the CIA had used the stereotype of a secretary to slip in a mole only to be blind to their own staff. Lisa was the perfect inside man, since she was immediately accepted into the sub-culture of administrative professionals. Mandy, despite her gender, radiated command presence which made her unsuitable for the task. Vendel and Ingram were academics and couldn't pass as anything else. But Lisa always managed to find gold.

Draining her coffee, Mandy began scheduling the series of useless meetings that would eat up her next day at Langley. It was a smokescreen for Lisa's presence. Ingram was working on the Russian front directly through the usual channels. If there was any official chatter on what Abbott's operations had to do with old-school communist black-ops, he'd find it. She didn't expect much. The photo Aaron had managed told nothing about the woman, but the man looked unnervingly like the one known photograph of Winter Soldier . The fact Aaron hadn't been able to take him with a rifle said everything. The guy was good . Too good to be a standard GRU hitter. Which begged the question, who the hell was Ward Abbott pissing off?

Her cell phone started vibrating. She pinned it with the flat of her palm to the desk to see who was calling. Jean Wills name appeared on the LCD screen. Mandy smirked. He was a suspicious bastard, but not as cautious as herself. She kept three work cells. Two were burner phones paid for with cash. She wouldn't ever be the one answering awkward questions about her phone records. "Hello Wills."

"Captain," Wills said carefully.

"The usual Starbucks. Fifteen minutes. I'll get us a table. Don't be late," she ordered, scooping up her coat. More sensitive intelligence activity occurred in the walls of a Starbucks in Langley, Virginia than just about anywhere else in the United States. Spies need fancy, overpriced coffee too.

"Lisa," she called as she blew through the outer office, "I'm going out for coffee. Keep Vendel on task, please. If he gives you any shit, shut him down for the day."

"Captain," Lisa yelled after her, "should I forward Dr. Ingram's calls?"

"He can wait," Mandy shouted back as she stepped into the elevator.

Wills was a big, nervous man. His dark hair was receding without greying, capping plain features. Like many in the business, he was ex-military. He'd been a quartermaster with the US Army, serving two tours of duty before joining the CIA. Vosen had scooped him up for his sharp eye for numerical detail. Mandy wouldn't have socialized with him for leisure. Not that she socialized for leisure much at all outside her husband and Byer. He sat a table inside, nursing a white and green paper cup.

Mandy ordered her black coffee with a double shot of espresso and room for milk. She topped off the steaming mixture with skim milk, stirring it and glancing around the shop. They had missed the lunch rush and the after lunch rush of people trying to meet covertly. She chose a table outside despite the slight chill in the air. Fall was coming fast. He followed her out and sat on the edge of the seat across from her. "Hello, Dita," he said, eyes darting around like she might be hiding a tactical team behind one of the bland sedans parked intermittently along the street.

"Hello, Lester," Mandy said sardonically. She wasn't amused by the familiarity. "How's Vosen?"

"Pissed," Wills admitted. "Abbott cut him out of the Vila Lobos op completely. We did the background research for it and established a covert post in the area to work form."

Mandy nodded. "Well, there's a reason he wanted you out. Wasn't there?" She smiled, raising her eyebrow. "The Russians."

Wills face crumpled a little. "I don't want to know how you know, do I?" Mandy didn't bother replying. "Yeah, the Russians. There's an oil magnate, Yuri Gretkov. He and Abbott /might/ know each other. Vosen thinks it’s nothing. The guy has the money to use the GRU as his personal security force for his projects. So he is on the radar. It could be nothing."

"You don't think it’s nothing," Mandy pointed out.

Wills shifted nervously. "Look, Danny Zorne is Conklin's PA. He says there's things Abbott doesn't tell Conklin."  
With a sigh, Mandy cut him off with a sharp gesture. "Abbott doesn't trust his mother. The fact he doesn't read Conklin in proves exactly nothing. Try again."

"Call it a gut feeling then," Wills shrugged. "I don't know. Gretkov is the only thing I have. I can't prove he and Abbott have a connection. I can't even prove he's involved in anything illegal. Vosen isn't chasing it. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's already forgotten."

"So," Mandy said, rolling each word sibilantly over her tongue, "you have precisely nothing at all. Wonderful. Wills, I need you to find me something."

Wills rocked forward hissing, "There is nothing to find, Captain. Any evidence is buried so deep in some Russian corporation somewhere it might as well not exist."

"When you find anything, hear anything, you call," Mandy said pleasantly, letting the threat hang in in her amiability. "I don't care how peripheral it seems. You call, and you tell us everything. Or we will have another discussion."

Swallowing convulsively, Wills nodded, "Yes, ma'am." He stood up and dumped his half-full cup in the trash can, trying to look like he wasn't running away. Mandy watched him go with her eyes burning holes between his shoulders. Vosen was too focused on a power grab to dig as far as this needed to go. Hopefully Lisa could churn up something useful tomorrow.

Mandy picked up Lisa from home at four in the morning. The driver was another security guard. Really, she should insist Byer let them use program security personnel, but they were short as it was. So she used a rent-a-cop.

They stopped by Starbucks for double shot lattes before flipping open the files of notes they’d put together. “Start with Kramer and work your way down the food chain,” Mandy sighed. “We’ll probably hit pay dirt somewhere in the mid-level.”

“Hmm,” Lisa murmured thoughtfully. Most of her notes consisted of useful, personal details from her last conversations with the administrative staff at Langley. There was also a list of people she hadn’t met yet and their classified personnel files. “Maybe.” Despite Mandy’s questioning noise, she didn’t elaborate.

Twelve hours of mostly useless meetings later, Mandy had determined the only thing they were breeding at the CIA was more idiots. Lisa had determined who was cheating on their spouse with whom but nothing about Russians in Colombia. The two women relaxed in the back of the black SUV while the security guard Mandy had promoted to driver for the day took them back to NRAG headquarters. Mandy put the privacy screen up to make sure he didn’t overhear anything. It had the added benefit of letting them make themselves comfortable.

They’d both abandoned their heels. Lisa had her skirt rucked up as she wiggled out of her thigh-high stockings. The dress code at NRAG was business casual. Since Lisa spent most of her day at her desk, she favored loose slacks and long, flowing skirts. The suit she wore was the same one she’d worn to her job interview with NRAG. Mandy longed to loosen her own Spanx, but her back ached fiercely. It was too intimate to ask Lisa for help, and Byer was far, far away.

"For the record, Captain," Lisa said wearily, dropping the snake-like crumples of fabric into her purse, "you are not the worst boss in the intelligence community." Mandy raised a questioning eyebrow. "Carla's pregnant. It's probably Kramer's. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Jesus," Mandy rolled her eyes. She’d turned in her seat to rub at her back. The muscles there were heavy with knotting and old scars. "Men. Why can't they just keep it in their pants? Or better yet in their spouses where it belongs." She'd never strayed from her husband in twenty often rough years of marriage. He'd given her the same courtesy.

Lisa looked up. "I don't know. The Colonel never seems to get in the usual kinds of trouble." She knew that Mandy and Byer weren't sleeping together, but they didn’t discourage others from the idea either.

"Lisa," Mandy warned sitting up straight in her seat again. It was a defensive posture. She bit the inside of her check in frustration at the tell.

"How many years have I worked for you, Dita?" Lisa sighed. She reached down and gently picked up Mandy’s leg by the ankle. "I used to pick up your boys from school. I also know that when you and the Colonel only book one hotel room, he sleeps on the couch. I buy him aspirin when it hurts his knees for God's sake. If I was going to say anything stupid to anyone, I would have gotten it out of my system a long time ago. Now push those stockings down to the knee so I can get them off."

Inclining her head in acceptance, Mandy sighed. Her fingers wiggled under the compression material around her thighs and slid the fabric to her knee. "We never had much of a choice, Lisa. It's an old boys' club with old rules. Men like him are even worse than women in the eyes of people like that. It doesn't matter that he's brilliant, loyal, and true to his country in every way that matters."

Lisa's eyes went wide as she skinned the stockings down Mandy’s legs. "Well. It sure explains a lot about him."  
"I suppose it does," Mandy said softly, looking out the window as she tugged her skirt back down. "He's been my only friend in this life I choose many times, Lisa. No one else would respect what I could do except him. Even when we fight, he's the only man in our building that never sees me as just a woman."

"He loves you, you know," Lisa said quietly. "No one ever doubts that."

Carefully, Mandy's fingers curled into defensive fists. "Exactly why the administrative staff are the most dangerous. People forget you're there."

"You don't," Lisa pointed out. "You just don't care that I see it." There was no arguing with that. She handed Mandy the folded stockings. "It's okay, Dita. No one would believe it anyways. That Lieutenant Colonel Eric Byer has a heart, as blackened and shriveled as it may be."

Mandy let out a small laugh. Some days even she didn't believe the man who watched YouTube videos of Jeff at two in the morning with a glass of whiskey in his hand was the same as the one who tore fearlessly into Ward Abbott. "You're right. No one would believe it. What do we have on Ward Abbott?"

"Well," Lisa said taking the change of subject easily, "He's lying to Conklin again. There are some suspicions that Treadstone may be moonlighting as a private operation. Nothing concrete. There's a lot of oil money in Russia right now. Could be how Abbott's caught their attention."

"Specifics?" Mandy asked, not expecting much from the frustration on Lisa's face.

"I'm sorry. It's nothing more than watercooler gossip, the very quiet kind, right now. If there was anything concrete, Vosen would be all over it." Lisa huffed. "There's something else though. The CIA boy you were looking into from Treadstone. Rumor has it he's struggling on the job. Might be something there."

The news brought Mandy's gaze back from the window. "Jason Bourne?" Lisa nodded. "Shit. How well do you know Danny Zorne?"

Lisa shrugged with a sly smile, "Well, I guess we're going to become very good friends, Director Mandy. I’m sure I have his phone number somewhere. I assume the expensive coffees I’m going to buy him while flirting outrageously are write-offs?”

Mandy tried to visualize Lisa flirting with the scrawny boy who was Conklin’s personal assistant. It was more comic than hopeful, but Lisa worked magic on a regular basis. “Yes. You can go ahead and reimburse yourself from petty cash. I’ll let Byer know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of notes this time. Betaed by the brilliant Julorean.
> 
> This chapter is called "Tie up a whole bunch of loose ends as quickly as possible" in my notes. It is also a salute to awesome admin staff everywhere. My admin saves my bacon on a regular basis. Yet some people still talk down to her. It pisses me off. 
> 
> Background is: Wills is the nervous, balding guy who called NRAG at the start of the Bourne Legacy movie. Vosen is the asshole who clashes with Landy in the Bourne Ultimatum. Zorne is the guy who Abbott kills.
> 
> Title from Sister's Are Doin' for Themselves as sung by Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin.


	28. Been Away So Long I Hardly Knew the Place

Pakistan turned into Afghanistan turned into Iran. Byer left for home in the middle of the Afghani mission. Aaron went where he was told, smiled at strangers, and shot through the heart or the head depending on the mission. He kept his new cell phone close and charged. Handlers, who weren't really handlers because they didn't stick around, met him every week to exchange blood kits and chems for full sample packs. There were no more babysitters. His skin went from tan to burnt dark as the desert natives. His hair was more blond than brown, bleached by the sun. He thought about Jason when eyes followed him, setting his teeth on edge, and at night when he was too wired to sleep. Jerking off to the memory of Jason's fingers and lips against his skin helped sometimes. Others, it kept him up wanting his partner back.

His Bucky was his only friend as he went from mountains so high he was left gasping at thin air, to lush deltas, to sandy deserts, and back again. The smell of gun oil began to linger on his skin as he fought to keep sand, dust, or humidity from interfering with the rifle's action. When he dreamed, he dreamed through the cross-hairs. They would have been nightmares except he could smell Jason's sweat and toothpaste with each warm exhale over his neck as the other man acted as his spotter. Aaron always woke up when he pulled the trigger but before the dull crack of the shot reached his ears. He never could remember his target. 

He spent some time attached to a peace-keeping unit in Afghanistan. They dressed him in nameless, patchless fatigues and a bullet proof vest. Aaron added a Glock to his gear and left the handle of his boot knife visible. They were traditional army and didn't know quite what to make of him. A few tried to bully him just to see what would happen. Rather than making a scene, he scampered for high ground where they couldn't follow. The unit's sniper tried to talk him down, literally, but Aaron kept to the roofs and alleys after that. Tim crawled up after him a few times, trying to make friends or at least insure Aaron wasn't going to shoot any friendlies. Aaron let him catch up to hearing distance sometimes just to have the company. Tim spoke with some sort of rolling accent Aaron didn't recognize, but he found pleasant to hear.

They became friends of a sort. Tim was quiet to the point of not speaking for days unless he was spoken to first. He'd had a spotter. The spotter was dead now. Which was why he was kicking tiles of the roof trying to follow Aaron. The cursing gave Aaron pause just to listen to Tim's accent.

Tim caught up, still swearing softly, but went silent when he saw Aaron. Aaron rabbited when the words stopped. They played that game several more times when Tim would get a visual again, but eventually the sniper had to give up and sleep. Aaron knew a thing or two about Pavlov and his dogs. After enough chases, Tim realized if he just kept talking, Aaron would stay still. So Tim talked about everything under the sun until he could reach out and touch like Aaron was some feral thing to tame. So long as Tim's accent kept rolling around the vowels, all Aaron wanted to do was listen. It had been so quiet since Byer left.

Talking was never hard for Aaron before he stopped. He never talked to Tim outside a few clipped directions, which were all he could push out of his throat. Aaron was a ghost among these men, and the dead didn't draw attention to themselves. Tim didn't have anything to say to the living. So that worked out well. Aaron showed him how to travel the roofs and pick off trouble before it started. They hunted the mud buildings and dusty streets like the predators they were.

One night when Aaron was feeling lonely enough he didn't make Tim chase him first, they lay on the roof together looking up at the stars quietly. Still, the silence itself had a presence with Tim's body warm against Aaron's. "I'm not re-upping," Tim said suddenly. "My sister's sick. She wants me at home." Aaron looked at the distant, crystalline points of light above him and refused to be upset. "Got an offer from a friend. Says he can get me into the US Marshals Service." It was an offer even if Tim wasn't quite asking. Tim was softer than any of the men in unit would believe. Rolling onto his side, Aaron shook his head. He was so far beyond a normal life it was unthinkable. "Thought so," Tim drawled. "Had to ask though. Not many people know how to be quiet." Aaron was sent into Iraq before Tim shipped out for home.

Aaron's kills peaked at seven high priority targets, not including assorted collateral deaths and kills of opportunity, when his handler of the week handed him a satellite phone and Byer said, "It's time to come home, soldier."

An old, Uzbekistani man took Aaron's Bucky and his pack at a safe house in the mountains along the border. The fatigues Aaron had been issued were sweated through and ragged at the edges. He didn't want to give them up. He'd stained them just right to blend into the landscape perfectly just about anywhere. They felt more like his skin than the brown covering over his muscles and bones. The man drove him to the city, to an airport. Aaron had to give up his knife and Glock as well. He took the backpack and duffle from the trunk of the man's car and took his Aaron Crosby passport out of the side-pocket of the backpack. No one looked at him twice on the trip home.

Peterson met him at Norfolk International Airport. Aaron had barely made the connection at Dulles and felt like he was drifting though a cloud of English surrounding him. It took him a long moment to identify Peterson. Six months had been another lifetime. Peterson looked okay, confident and steady as always. So he'd survived whatever shitstorm the Rasar had brought.

Aaron walked over to him and stopped military precise a few feet from his old handler. "Hey, kid," Peterson said with a warm smile. Jason called Aaron 'kiddo' even though they were the same age. Byer called him ‘kid’ when he was hurting. He didn’t like Peterson presuming.

"Don't call me that," Aaron said. He didn't make it sound like a threat. It didn't particularly sound like much in his monotone, but Peterson could read the anger in the space between the words.

Peterson's face dropped into a frown, "Okay, Aaron. I'm sorry. Let me get your bags, and we'll get you home." He took the duffel and laid a heavy hand on Aaron's shoulder to push him through the crowd. "You doing okay? You look spacey."

Aaron paused, trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing. "I don't know. Are you okay? They wouldn't let me see you after everything happened."

The sudden burst of concern softened up Peterson immediately. He smoothed his hand down Aaron's back reassuringly. "I was on vacation with my wife. That shit never touched me."

The crowds thinned out as they walked to the garage and the familiar black SUV. Aaron dropped his backpack full of things that weren't his in the trunk next to the duffel. He climbed into the backseat and picked up the cup of soda in the cup holder. There was a thin wafer of the pill dissolved in it still on the bottom. Aaron tossed it back, swallowing quickly to avoid the bitter aftertaste. Drugged sleep felt more than a little like being smothered after going so long without it. He was gasping hard as the edges of his vision wavered and went grey. Peterson was there, words slurring into a long, comprehensible noise, laying him down across the backseat. Aaron wanted to shove him away, but when he tried his arms wouldn't move. He hyperventilated himself into unconsciousness.

The wall he was staring at when he woke up felt foreign even though he recognized it. He was back in his room in the Virginia facility. He sat up and gulped the down the glass of water left on the crate which acted as his nightstand. Dehydration had been a constant companion in the 'Stans, but he hadn't missed the sickly headache the drugs left lingering behind his right eye. They'd left him alone to gather himself. He appreciated the privacy.

His room didn't appear to have been touched except for the slight displacement that suggested someone had dusted. It must have been tossed while he was gone, but whoever had done the search put it back together thoughtfully and carefully. The dental pliers were gone from his desk drawer. In their place was a new MP3 player and headphones. It was a more expensive one than the Rasar had bothered with. The touch screen was an actual touchscreen and the display's colors were vibrant rather than grainy. The track list included some classic rock, but not Rocky Mountain Way, and a playlist called 'Language'.

Aaron slipped the earbuds in and selected the new playlist. A man's voice said, "Bonjour, hello, welcome to my first French lesson…" Flipping through the playlist revealed a beginner's lesson for French, German, Russian, Polish, Spanish, and Italian. Leaving the track playing, that way he could recite along with the instructor, Aaron wandered through his old space. His clothes were clean and folded in his footlocker. The old drain was still dry, and all his little treasures were tucked away safe and sound.

Pulling out the plug of the headphones caused the speakers on Aaron's new MP3 player to activate. He counted in Russian along with a woman as he started the water in his shower. His old clothes he stripped off and left in a crumpled heap in the hallway outside his door. They weren't really his. Steam was rising from the concrete floor of the shower when he walked back. The spray was hot enough to pink his skin as he stood there and tried to wash off the independent shooter he'd been, like it was the dust still lingering in his hair.

His shower was a corner of his bathroom slanted into a drain with exposed piping connected to a showerhead seven feet up to provide the spray. It had been an addition for Aaron's comfort, branching off from the piping at the sink. Originally the only plumbing had been for sink and toilet since the room was intended to be a holding cell. Aaron liked the openness of the set up. He could see the door to his room from the shower as well as his bed and the old drain. A dispenser of liquid soap which was both shampoo and bodywash was attached to the wall next to a hook for the rag Aaron used to scrub himself. The rag was also freshly cleaned.

A soft knock on his door had him stepping out of the shower, wiping his hands on the towel, and shutting off the MP3 player. "Come in," he called. "I'm in the shower." He stepped back under the spray to rinse off the suds left in his hair.

Peterson entered holding a holstered Glock 30 in his hand. "I brought your weapon and spare clips to keep here. I've also got a fob for you. It'll give you access to the ammunition cabinets in the armory." He held up the black, plastic circle attached to a carabineer clip. "I leave them on your nightstand. Any injuries I need to know about?"  
"Nothing that stuck around," Aaron answered, finishing scrubbing the grit out of the creases of his feet. It chafed like a bitch. "Any word from Byer?"

"Two days down time," Peterson said, leaning against the wall at the edge of the bathroom. "I'll be around doing maintenance, paperwork, that sort of shit. If you want a sparring or running partner, let me know."

Aaron turned off the water, shaking his head like a dog. "I'll take you up on the second now. I finally got all the sand out of my crotch."

Peterson grinned. "I'll change. Meet you outside in five."

The running trails had gotten rougher since Aaron had left. The Rasar's parallel trails had been partially washed away and overgrown. Peterson couldn't keep up without her shortcuts. Aaron doubled-back to help Peterson over the deadfall when he slipped. The air was just starting to warm up. There were still some patches of ice on the ground making the run look more like an obstacle course. The 'Stans had left Aaron lean and quick. The toes of his boots dug in like climbing spikes, and he ran like he'd memorized a map of what was solid ground. Peterson was laughing breathlessly and calling him, "Fucking inhuman, Aaron. Help an old man out." Aaron balanced him and tried not to look up the bank where there was six pristine feet of the trail the Rasar had put in.

“Shit,” Peterson yelped. Aaron jerked away from his distraction. Not quickly enough that Peterson didn’t go down hard. “Motherfucker. It’s sprained. Fuck that hurts.”

Dropping into a crouch, Aaron carefully dusted the dirt off bare skin and probed Peterson’s ankle. “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “I’ll help you back.”

They walked back to the main building since Peterson had twisted an ankle. Aaron shoved a shoulder under the bigger man’s arm and helped him limp along. Peterson cursed every time his ankle was bumped. It was all Aaron could do not to choke him out to keep him quiet. He almost dropped Peterson when he saw Byer with two vaguely familiar men, obviously security, in the lobby.

“Sir,” Aaron said as he propped Peterson on one of plastic chairs.  
Peterson politely echoed, “Colonel.”

Byer nodded brusquely at Peterson saving his wane smile for Aaron. “I’m sorry about this, Aaron. I need you for a mission,” he said a voice that was quiet but carried.

“I’ll shower again,” Aaron replied immediately. “Where am I going?”

“You’re staying in the US for now,” Byer said grimly. His mouth pressed into a thin line rimmed in white. “An asset had a psychotic break and went rogue two days ago. He’s going after my godson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed (and plot approved) by Julorean.
> 
> And now: Dun, dun, duunn...
> 
> Chapter title from Back in the USSR.


	29. If Ya Give This Man a Ride

"Are you sure?" Byer asked, flipping through the surveillance photos. Outcome Two was slated for Syria. He hadn't taken well to the program from the beginning. His dosages of chems and psychoactives had been adjusted several times to no avail. "There's no family history of mental illness." It was frustrating to run into yet another problem this far into the program. North Korea and Iran had already been infiltrated. Outcome Six had been successfully rotating through the camps of several African warlords. Outcome Three had gone perhaps a little too native in Pakistan. That could be fixed though.

Ingram shrugged. "It can show up without a family history. The schizophrenia probably wouldn't have manifested itself until he was older, but the chems pushed up that timeline." He pushed up his glasses. "He took out both of his trainers and three security personnel."

"Level fives?" Byer asked coolly.

"Yes," Ingram replied, checking the file. "They were posted as a precaution only. Outcome Two wasn't considered high risk. We had no idea how bad the complications had gotten."

Byer nodded, lips pursed in anger. "I'm getting really fucking tired of reactive measures. You and Vendel do a threat assessment for the remaining subjects. I want at least two level fives at all facilities. Are sure it’s us he's hunting?"

"He tortured the assistant trainer," Ingram grimaced. It still made his stomach churn thinking about it. "It's on tape. He was asking about you and AD Mandy. She broke before he killed her."

Byer growled, "How long since he's dropped off the radar?" Mandy had already upped her personal security herself. Once Ingram was done, he'd check the logs to be sure. "I assume that's why you’re here. Mandy's securing her family, and you and Vendel somehow managed to not have a bullet put through Outcome Two."

"Twelve hours," Ingram said, flinching. "He managed to evade our security response team."

Reaching up, Byer rubbed his palms against his eyes. "Of course he did. Goddammit. Leave, Ingram. I don't want to see you again until Outcome Two is neutralized."

Ingram paled but gathered himself for one last sally, "Sir…"

Byer stood up. His voice started off soft but rose ferociously with each word. "You're incompetence has put Assistant Director Mandy and her /entire/ family in danger, Ingram. If you don't leave now, I'm going to volunteer you for the next round with those interrogation drugs and run the trial myself. Clear?" Ingram shivered like a rabbit, eyes watering. "Get the fuck out you useless imbecile." The door slammed behind him as Ingram fled.

Unclenching his fists, Byer rolled his head to loosen the muscles of his neck. It had taken a great deal of effort to not just beat the scientist to death with his bare fists. Instead, he exhaled steadily through his nose. The facade of calm lasted until his personal cell rang and displayed Mandy's home phone number. When he flipped it open, Mandy spoke before he could greet her, "Jeff's security team isn't answering their phones."

"Get a flight to Philly," Byer said evenly, forcing himself not to yell. "I'll call one of the private security firms we keep on retainer. Just until we have something better figured out. I'll meet you at the airport. Text me the details."

"Yes, sir," Mandy replied with her voice strained nearly to the breaking point. She hung up without further pleasantries.

Byer slammed back into his chair, quarrying their records for anyone who had an office in Philadelphia. He selected the first two companies that came up and eyeballed their rosters. OBE Private Security LLC had the best mix of former law enforcement and retired Special Forces. Their secretary was very accommodating and sent a four man distance protection team out to cover Jeff as soon as she hung up. Another two were en route for close-quarters security. Byer sent that in a text to Mandy. Jeff was going to fight any security measures. Mandy could field the first round herself. That was one argument Byer wanted no part of until mother had softened up son.

Jeff Mandy wasn't used to being scared. Anger, nerves, and disappointment haunted his steps, yes, but he was a professional athlete who wasn't a superstar. Now, with his mom's arms wrapped around him, he was scared. Mom was never scared of anything. She'd stood down men twice her size and a war without faltering. When Jeff needed to stare down a D-man who was about to flatten him, he thought of her. Except he could feel her shaking as she curled her body around him like she could still tuck him protectively in the bend of her stomach if she just held hard on enough. "What's wrong, Mom?" he demanded, wrapping his arms around her.

"Nothing now," she said with the perfect calm that once had meant Dad wasn't coming home tonight. "Now that I know you're okay." Three big men stood behind her. They didn't look happy to be there. She straightened and glared at them. "Clear his apartment. Now. Jeffie, baby, stay away from the windows until they're done, okay?"

"Yes, Captain," a linebacker of a man with salt and pepper hair drawled out. "New kids start out the outer rooms. Work your way in. Close the blinds, lights on low. Use those beepy thingies to check for explosives." The men fanned out through Jeff's apartment holding some kind of boxy electronic device in on hand. They all had guns.

Jeff started breathing like he'd been doing wind sprints instead of playing video games. "Mom?"

Mom held him firmly in place. "Let them work, Jeffie." It was more than little freaky to hear her 'everything's gonna be okay, baby' voice again. The last time she'd pulled it out was when he hadn't made the draft. He'd felt like the world was ending. Hearing that tone out of the blue made him shaky down to his guts.

"Captain," the linebacker said after the three men had gone through his entire apartment, "we're clear. The blinds are down. Why don't you and your son get comfortable in the living room. I'll get the Colonel up here. OBE's boys will cover the door."

Stiffly, Mom nodded, "Thank you, Bobby Lee. You and Jack should also check in with the distance security team. Let me know what you think."

Bobby Lee straightened and didn't quite salute, "Yes, ma'am."

"Mom," Jeff asked as she led him over to his couch where his Call of Duty game was paused, "what the hell is going on?" He let her keep his hand. It wasn't worth the effort to make her loosen her white-knuckled grip from his fingers.

Mom reached up and cupped his check to make sure he was looking at her. "Jeffie, something happened at my work. A man, an agent, who works for me turned out to be mentally ill. He killed several people who were trying to help him. I worked closely with him, and he might blame me. He does blame me. I put a security team on you and your brothers. Two hours ago, your security detail stopped answering their phones."

"Jesus," Jeff croaked. He knew Mom's job hadn't gotten any safer since she retired from the Air Force, but the details had never interested him. "Really?" Mom nodded sadly, her hand slipping up from his cheek to finger comb his hair straight. "I've got an away game next week, Mom. I can't drag a security detail with me. We're playing the Penguins."

The purse of Mom's mouth made Jeff wince. His dad said he was the most like his mother, but he'd still never won a fight with her. Luckily a knock on the door interrupted them. Uncle Rick slipped passed the armed men wearing a t-shirt and jeans beneath his leather jacket. "Jeff," he said, relieved, holding open his arms.

Jeff sprang off the couch. He didn't realize how hard he hit Rick until the man thumped into the wall beneath him. Before he could pull back and apologize, Rick wrapped him into a tight hug. Hockey kept Jeff in very good shape, but his godfather was a marathoner who was startlingly sturdy despite being a good fifty pounds lighter than Jeff. Winded, but steady, Rick hung on to Jeff's shoulders. "You scared us, Jeff," he murmured, pressing his forehead to Jeff's temple.

"Sorry," Jeff said automatically not quite sure what he was apologizing for. "Are you okay, Uncle Rick?" He stepped back to see if Rick could stay upright.

"You will never be big enough to hurt me, Jeff," Rick said fondly as he caught his breath. "I watched your game against the Predators. That was a nice shot."

Jeff shrugged. "It's the Predators, Uncle Rick." He still flushed like a little boy at the obvious pride in Rick's eyes. "Mom says I need a security detail."

Rick nodded. "Yeah, you do, Jeff. This guy who's after your mom is dangerous." He took Jeff's and guided them back to the couch. Mom's lips were pursed again. Jeff squared his own shoulders in preparation. Uncle Rick shifted to keep both mother and son in view. "I think we've had this discussion before, Captain, Jeff. For the sake of my ears, could we /please/ not cover old ground. Jeff, you need security. You're mom's absolutely right about that. I have a… less traditional solution if you're open to hearing it, Captain. It won't restrict Jeff's movements, and may actually provide better coverage."

"Go ahead, sir," Mom said tightly.

"A man who works for us. His name is Aaron. He's an Army Ranger, only a little bit older than you, Jeff. He's… usually on the other side of this kind of equation, but that can be better than formal training." Mom didn't look happy with Rick's suggestion. Her grimace shifted to a full-blown scowl. "He's personable, if a bit under-socialized, competent, and can blend just about anywhere. If you give him a crash course in hockey, he'll fit into your world just fine." Rick glanced at Mom carefully, like he wasn't sure if she would approve.

Mom continued to scowl, but she nodded to Jeff, "The Colonel trusts him, Jeffie. I have no reason to believe otherwise." The wording was odd but reassuring.

"Okay," Jeff said clearing his throat. "What's the catch with this Aaron guy?"

Rick smiled a little. "Well, you'll still have a team covering you from a distance, but Aaron will be with you twenty-four seven. He'll be your shadow. I mean it, Jeff. If you have to use the bathroom, he'll be covering the door from next to you. If he says jump, you ask how high. That's the only way this works. But…He's yours. He'll go where you go, do what you do. You'll have to make a few adjustments to your routines, but he'll walk you through those. This is as close to normal as we can manage until we've got our agent secured."

"Anything's better than lockdown, Uncle Rick," Jeff sighed. "When do I get to meet my new shadow?"  
Nodding approvingly, Rick agreed, "Think of him as your shadow. That's good. He's in Virginia right now. I'll fly back tonight and pick him up. Your mom and her security team are staying with you until I'm back. She'll walk you through the basics, including some background on Aaron. Captain, I'll send you the files."

"Thank you, sir," Mom said, wrapping Jeff back into a hug. She wasn't completely happy with the turn of events, but anything was better than being locked down. It had happened once before when he was in the Juniors. He'd just been drafted for the North American Hockey League. Mom had come home angry one day, and he hadn't gotten on the plane to Iowa. She'd talked to coaches and smoothed things over. The Outlaws had taken him the next year, no questions asked, but the lost year kicked him from the list of potentials to where he was. Clawing his way back to pro was exhausting. Any problems now could exile him in Tier II for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the wonderful Julorean.
> 
> Late onset schizophrenia is a thing. It's really awful, and I imagine could only be made worse with the chems. Outcome Three is the man in the cabin in the Legacy movie.
> 
> Jeff played for the North Iowa Outlaws (now the Coulee Region Chill), a Tier II Junior hockey team in the NAHL conference for those who care.


	30. Young Pilgrims to this Day

Aaron was smaller than Jeff Mandy expected. He supposed it was too many action movies that associated Army ranger with six-foot-plus muscle heads. Still, Aaron Crosby was small . It didn't help that he was wearing a Flyers shirt a size too big. The army duffel over his shoulder and his expression gave him the air of a lost soul looking for a familiar face. He did blend in with the other inhabitants of Mandy's middle class apartment building. Rick was right about him passing as normal.

"So, I'm Jeff." Mandy awkwardly stuck out his hand. "Uncle Rick said you'd already be caught up."

"Yeah," Aaron said softly. He looked uncertainly at Mandy's hand. "I'm your shadow until this over."

"You usually shake," Mandy blurted out when it became obvious Aaron had no idea what to do with the hand. Awkwardly, Aaron shifted his duffel to the floor and carefully shook Mandy's hand like it wasn't something he did often. "So, have you ever played hockey?"

Aaron blinked. That was not the question he'd been expecting. "Uh, no," he said tentatively. Mandy's face drooped a little. "I've spent most of my life in a desert, sir."

Mandy shifted a little, rocking back on his heels. "You can just call me Jeff. I'm not military." He opened the door wider and stepped back. "Come on in. Um, Mom set up a cot in my room for you. I'm a little weirded out to be honest."

"It's fine," Aaron said so Jeff had to strain to hear. "It'll be nice not to crash on the floor. Where can I leave my bag?"

"Um," Mandy shifted again. "My room, I guess. Do you want anything to drink or eat? I mean, Mom stocked me up while she was here." He looked at Aaron's raised eyebrow. "Oh, yeah. I should do the walk through now. Um, so follow me. This is the living room. Everything else is off the hallway. Right is the kitchen. There's a table there for eating. I usually eat on the couch." His babbling cut off abruptly. Turning on heel, he gazed at Aaron like a sad puppy. "Don't tell Mom and Uncle Rick that bit, please." Aaron nodded in a way he hoped was reassuring. "Bedroom is at the end of the hall. Left is the exercise room. I've got an elliptical, bike, and a weight bench. You're welcome to use them."

Aaron followed Jeff into the bedroom, noting the wide windows. At least Mandy had kept the blinds down. There was a foldable army surplus cot underneath the windows in the bedroom. The duffel clattered a little as it hit the thin mattress. "I'm not hungry or thirsty," Aaron assured Jeff when the younger man wouldn't stop pacing around him like an overeager puppy . "I'm going to need to do a sweep. So you can do whatever you want. I'll be fine."  
Mandy blushed a little. Aaron tried not to stare. The family resemblance between the lumbering boy and the cold-eyed woman, who'd slowly and with small words explained to Aaron what vivisection was, was apparent in the sharp cheek bones, pointed chin, and slightly turned nose, but his demeanor was nothing like his mother’s. It was kind of relief actually. She'd been lethally serious about vivisection.

Her son was a fairly nice, normal kind of kid. He'd settled in the living room playing some racing game using a white controller. The TV was attached to the wall and thinner than anything Aaron had ever seen before. Tinny, psuedo-rock music echoed from the room as Aaron checked the windows and doors, gauging the security of Mandy's apartment. It was on the twenty-first floor, making the front door the most appealing access. There were lots of lines of sight into the apartment. That was standard for an urban area like this. Keeping the blinds down and the lights low at night would mitigate most of the risk.

There were two new locks installed on the front door. The scratched paint around them hadn't been touched up yet like it had around the edges of the original deadbolt. Aaron tugged on the steel chain which had been bolted into a stud. It wouldn't stop someone really determined, but there would be enough noise Aaron would know immediately.

"I was going to order out for dinner," Mandy called. "It's a healthy Asian place. Menu's on the fridge. The food's pretty good actually. I forgot to ask, are you on dietary restrictions?"

Aaron decided not to mention his diet for the past few months had primarily of high-calorie nutrient bars and whatever vermin he could shoot with a pistol. "No," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the video game. The exercise room was well ventilated, luckily, with wide windows. There hadn't been curtains originally. Blankets had been pressed into service instead. Aaron winced. He needed to get window tint film. It would at least cut down on the amount of backlighting through all the window coverings. He used his new slick black cell phone to tap out the email to Peterson listing the things he wanted to improve security. It was more a wish list, but he'd be glad for any of it.

Then, Aaron went to the kitchen and found the menu for the Green Lotus Café (Healthy Asian Cuisine). He winced when he saw the prices. Money wasn't something he thought about in the program. After the Rasar had died, he never bothered checking his bank account again. His food was issued to him or purchased by Byer. The last time he'd thought about money was right before he enlisted. Fifteen bucks was really goddamn steep for a meal that didn't even come with rice. Aaron resigned himself to the cheapest thing on the menu and added shake mix and ration bars to the list of things he wanted. There was no way he could match what his metabolism required without angering Mandy's mother at the drain on her son's resources. The menu he left on the kitchen table as he went to check on Mandy.

"You want to play?" Mandy offered when he spotted Aaron leaning against the wall. Aaron blinked. He'd been planning to stand guard, but Mandy looked vaguely hopeful. And Aaron's orders were specifically to keep Mandy as content as possible while still safe. Right now, Mandy was confused and little nervous. He kept glancing surreptitiously at Aaron, not threatening but curious.

So Aaron checked the door again before folding his legs beneath him on the floor a good four feet from Mandy. "Okay, how do I play?" he asked, taking the controller Mandy had set up for him.

They played until Mandy got hungry. He ordered over the phone, and Aaron went down to the lobby to pick it up. Mandy actually stayed in the kitchen and didn't answer the door when Aaron knocked. Aaron had a key, but he wanted to make sure his new charge was obeying the ground rules. There was a sly grin on Mandy's face when Aaron brought the food into the kitchen. "That was cute. You thought I wouldn't listen." 

Aaron shrugged, unpacking the cartons and organizing them on the table in front of Mandy. The kid had ordered enough food that Aaron wondered briefly if he'd ever been in a program. He extracted his own carton of house chop suey and brown rice and dumped them both in a bowl to mix with his fork. "There's chopsticks," Mandy said, pointing with his own wooden skewers at a second, red paper package.

"Never used 'em before," Aaron said, swallowing his forkful of food. 

Mandy stared. "You've… Okay, I can't believe that. Look, I got Jake and Jean-Paul these trainer chopsticks. Let me find them." He dug around in one of the kitchen drawers. Aaron desperately shoveled food into his mouth, dreading what was about to happen. While Mandy seemed extremely proficient at feeding himself with twigs, half of his steamed vegetables already gone, Aaron was fairly sure the learning curve was steep and painful.  
"Hah," Mandy triumphantly help up a contraption made of two sticks on a hinge with three rings arrayed on the sticks. He walked over to the table and ordered, "Hand." Aaron put down his fork and reluctantly extended his right hand. Mandy arranged the chopsticks in Aaron's hands. The rings held Aaron's fingers in place. "Okay try now."

Aaron gamely grabbed at a piece of chicken. He chased it around his bowl until he figured out how to grasp it. He shoved it in his mouth quickly before it could slide away. The only reason he didn't toss the diabolical things in the sink was the honestly pleased smile on Mandy's face as the kid settled down to his own meal. With grim resignation, Aaron pecked away at his food. The food was a cold, congealed mess by the time Mandy was finished and Aaron could scrape up the rest of his bowl with a fork.

Mandy was back in the living room on the couch with a notebook and his laptop hooked to the TV. Video clips of hockey were rolling across the screen. Aaron looked in on him as he tidied up the kitchen and tossed the empty food containers. "You don't have to clean up," Mandy said, flushing as he realized what had happened. "I've got a woman who comes to clean when I'm at practice."

"She's not coming," Aaron said as he settled into a chair across from the door with the books Byer had given him. "Security risk." He opened Hockey for Dummies and began reading.

Mandy scowled. "Really? Great. I am going to practice tomorrow, Aaron. Even if Mom says it’s safer if I don't. I can't exactly play hooky."

"Your security team and I already assumed that you would attend all games, all practices, and all optional skates," Aaron said evenly. "You may want to come up with a reason for me to be dogging you. I know your coaches have been read in. What about your teammates?"

"I was going to tell them you were my cousin or something. Shit, you’ll need to learn how to skate," Mandy's scowl deepened. "I'll get you some skates and start teaching you tomorrow."

Aaron flipped through the introduction to the technical terms. "You might want to mention I'm back from Iraq." He tipped the book sideways to analyze the layout of the rink. He wasn't quite sure why he needed to learn to skate, but it wasn't worth arguing over. The security at the Wells Fargo Center was already a nightmare security-wise. He might as well see how bad it was from the ice.

Mandy's feathers were seriously ruffled now. He snapped a little as he said, "Couldn't you at least have not used your real name? I mean, Crosby. That's fucking well loaded. You'd have been better off just making something up."

There was enough ice in Aaron's voice to stop Mandy's frustration cold. "What makes you think they let me use my real name anymore?"

The awkward silence that settled over the room lasted for two chapters. Then Mandy shifted and said abashed, “I’m crashing.” He shut off his TV and computer. “I’m sorry about being an asshole. I just hate this.”

“Its fine,” Aaron reassured him automatically, standing as well. “Let me clear the bedroom and then I’ll lock up.” Mandy didn’t protest, waiting quietly in the living room while Aaron ensured there was no one else in the apartment. The apartment’s security system was high-end. Aaron felt comfortable changing into the sports pants Peterson had packed him to sleep in rather than staying fully dressed and ready for action. He did put a Glock right under the edge of his mattress and a shotgun on the floor next to the bed. He also laid out two bulletproof vests and his boots to be yanked on a moment’s notice. The second vest was for himself. Mandy would get the first. The preparations made Mandy stare wide-eyed at the guns as Aaron brushed his teeth and rinsed some of the travel sweat off his neck and face with warm water.

Aaron ignored Mandy’s gaping. He rubbed his fingers against the soft, synthetic material of the blanket covering his bed. It was nothing like the rough, Army wool on his cot in Virginia. Sliding beneath it felt a little unreal after so much time on the ground. The room went dark as Mandy switched off the lamp. Touching gun and vest in turn, Aaron sighed and closed his eyes. He wondered if he’d still dream about his Bucky and Jason or if those were mountain and desert dreams belonging to a different country.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the ever patient and kind-hearted Julorean.
> 
> Title from Zero and Blind Terry.
> 
> Now, it's time for Round Two of getting to know my readers. This one's easier. Promise! First one who can tell me, without the internet, why Aaron's alias pisses off Jeff gets a drabble.


	31. On the Streets of Philadelphia

Security at the rink was just as nightmarish as Aaron had thought. Even mostly empty, there were just too many lines of sight to the ice. This wasn’t even considering the number of people there wearing employee IDs. A vaguely familiar man who'd introduced himself as Jack had appeared over breakfast (egg whites and toast made by Mandy) to brief Aaron and give him an earwig. Aaron had studied the schematics of the Wells Fargo Center extensively on his way to Philadelphia along with the security details. There wouldn't be any surprises in layout at least.

Jack was Aaron's primary contact with the security team. The earwig connected Aaron to the team's chatter. They would handle the more traditional security functions. Aaron was the last line of defense. Which was why he was standing by the door to the ice, wearing a jacket over one of the band t-shirts Byer had given him. Mandy had skipped the pre-practice workout. He and Aaron had used the home gym instead to give Jack and his team time to get a better handle on security. "Here." Aaron held out Mandy's helmet.

"You gonna cheer me on?" Mandy asked with a small smile as he strapped it in place. Aaron shrugged, leaning against the glass surrounding the rink, which rose from the half-wall fencing the ice to about three feet above Aaron's head. Mandy sighed and pushed out onto the ice. There had been more awkward apologies over breakfast, but Aaron didn't know how to explain that he didn't really care. Pressing a monocular to his eye, Aaron scanned the faces of the staff moving around the rink from the stands. None of them looked like the rogue agent from the file.

Still, he carefully watched the ebb and flow of humanity from the seats and through the corridors around the ice. The security team was good about radio protocol. The only comments Aaron heard from the earwig were useful tidbits about possibly security threats. Most of which were dealt with before they ever came near the rink where Mandy blended into the swirl of orange and black clad bodies flying across the ice. It was a closed practice, so only employees of the Center and Flyers staff were around.

Aaron watched the passing drills with interest when there were no new faces to check. The quick flicks of the players' wrists were mostly concealed by their thick gloves. The puck appeared to move in ways that defied physics as number 28 and number 27 dueled for it. Mandy caught the pass from number 28 and dodged around 20 for the goal. The goalie caught the puck after Mandy hefted it towards the net with the curved blade of his stick. 20 caught it and sent it down the ice to 48 who brought it around to make his own run at the goal.

It looked like fun. The players were breathing hard and shouting at each other across the ice between the trainers and coaches bellowing about changing drills and form corrections. It reminded Aaron a little of the pick-up soccer games he'd seen the soldiers in Afghanistan play. Though there was an intensity to the players' joking that the soldiers never had.

Aaron spent the time the players were on the ice pacing around the rink, getting a feel for how he could maneuver closer to Mandy without being out there with him. He really needed a glass breaker. Practice was winding down as he completed his second circuit. "Aaron," Mandy called from ice as Aaron passed him. "Head for the bench. Jim said you could borrow his skates."

Some of the players called out at Mandy, curious about why Aaron was being ordered to put on skates. Mandy grinned and shook his head, replying with something borderline catty. Aaron slipped into the home bench area. A trainer was waiting there with a pair of skates and a battered, stained stick. "Jeff's got a good eye," he said approvingly. "You are pretty close to my size. Lefty or righty?"

"I shoot both ," Aaron replied as he unlaced and pulled off his new boots. His feet were sore from the stiffness of the new leather.

"Okay, I play left," Jim said amiably. "So this stick'll be fine." He looked oddly at Aaron's fumbling with the skate's laces. "You play street hockey?"

"No," Aaron said quietly. "Never played any kind of hockey."

Mandy's body impacted the wall in front of the bench. He smoothly hopped over, putting aside his gloves and stick. "Here, I've got it, Aaron." He knelt down and adjusted Aaron's legs so the blades of the skates were flat against the floor. The blades were covered by a plastic case to protect them from chipping. "Push your heels back," Mandy told Aaron. "These need to be on tight, or you'll hurt yourself." He undid the laces to the last set of eyes and carefully re-laced the skate tightly around Aaron's foot.

A group of curious hockey players - the more senior and the family men had dispersed - crowded around the bench watching the proceedings. 28 grinned a gap-toothed smile and said something in French. Mandy rolled his eyes. "Everyone, this is my cousin, or something like that, Aaron Crosby. Save the jokes, guys. He's here because of the shit my mom's going through at work. He just got back from Iraq." To Aaron he said, "You'll figure out which one of these morons is which eventually. Go ahead and try to stand up now." He pulled the plastic guards off the blades.  
Aaron balanced, feeling his center of gravity adjust for the height. Mandy hopped back over the wall, scattering some of the other players back. "Okay. I'll help you over now. It's going to feel different when you step on the ice. So just hang onto me until you find your center." It was easy for Aaron to heft himself over the wall onto the ice. Mandy was right. His feet skidded opposite directions. Only Aaron's frantic grip on Mandy's shirt, and Mandy's fingers hooking in his belt, kept his ass from hitting ice. More hands covered by heavy gloves shot out to stabilize Aaron along with 'helpful' suggestions.

"Okay," Mandy said a little sharply. "If you guys are just going to be assholes, get off the ice. He doesn't need to deal with your shit." His tone scattered most of the players. The goalie, a tall man who Aaron had no desire to meet in a dark alley, and two younger men stuck around. "Now," Mandy said to Aaron, "the blades are actually on the edge of the skates. Remember that. You feel stable?"

Aaron shifted and felt the way his skates didn't move with his weight directly over them. "Yeah," he said releasing his white knuckled grip on Mandy's sweater. It felt very precarious. Cautiously, Aaron made a short stroke with his right skate like he'd seen the players do during practice. He slid smoothly across the ice. Another short push gave a little speed. 22 offered an arm for Aaron to catch and stop himself.

Mandy grinned. "Okay, we're in business. Spread out, guys. Aaron, these are Shuey and his brother Shuey. Brendan and El Shue. I think Bez is sticking around so you have someone to shoot the puck at if we get that far." 30 smiled thinly as he moved down the ice, waving at Aaron. "So, you go ahead and skate. I'll be next to you to keep the spills to a minimum. Try to catch one of these guys."

Aaron grimaced and let 22 go with a grateful smile. 22, El Shue, gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder before heading down ice. Resettling himself, Aaron pushed off again angling his body towards Bez. Mandy skated alongside him, letting him intuit how to turn, slow, stop, and change directions as Bez, El, and Brendan circled around the rink. Occasionally he'd offer helpful tips, like "Lift your skate to turn faster." The players were skating along lazily, letting Aaron come close before they cut away.

"So, you were a soldier?" Brendan asked. His English was clear and precise but not quite American. He had a big, friendly smile which only grew wider as Mandy stabilized Aaron out of bad skid. Aaron nodded, eyes narrowed as he chased down El. Brendan started skating backwards so he could talk face to face with Aaron. "What kind of soldier?"

"Army Rangers," Aaron replied. He was well seeped in his cover story, which wasn't that far from his real history. "Peace-keeping mostly."

Mandy sighed loudly. "Mom just worries too much, Shuey. Aaron agreed to help to keep her satisfied I'm safe, and I hadn't seen him in forever. So it was win-win." He turned around to skate backwards as well. "And you're skating. That was quick. You’re sure you've never done this before?" He brushed past El and sprayed snow over Brendan, who shouted protest. It kept Brendan from asking any more questions.

Aaron snorted. "Yes, I'm sure. What's next?"

"Shooting," Mandy said cheerfully. "But we should leave that for later. Just skate while you’re in the rhythm." He turned on heel to skate forward. "We've got time for a few more laps. Go crazy." A few, loud, scraping strides had him sailing away from Aaron. Aaron dogged him resolutely, not letting him break for one of the doors and sneak off to the locker room.

Mandy darted and twisted like he could fake out Aaron on body language alone. More confidently, Aaron kept up. He was starting to trust the way his body moved on the ice. The tension in his core and leg felt more controlled and less like a desperate attempt to stay balanced, and Mandy was tired from practice. Eventually, the hockey player gave up as his teammates chided him for pushing too hard with a game in two days. Bez helped Aaron off the ice with a quiet, "You did well for first time."

"Thanks," Aaron said, surprised to realize he was cold. He'd been sweating during their game, and his t-shirt and jeans were clammy against his skin.

Bez grinned. "Jeff is good boy. So are you I think." Then he patted Aaron on the head and disappeared into the locker room. Aaron wasn't quite sure what he meant, but he smiled and nodded anyways. Bez, as big and stolid as he was, struck Aaron as a genial, thoughtful sort. Aaron liked him already.

While Mandy showered and changed into street clothes, Aaron unlaced himself from his skates and pulled his boots back on. Jim had left a note saying Aaron could borrow the skates. Jim's wife was getting him new ones anyways. Aaron stowed the skates in Mandy's gear bag with the same care he'd taken with his Bucky after watching how reverently El and Brendan treated theirs.

Mandy hefted the bag over his shoulder on the way out, raising an eyebrow at the second set of skates. Aaron shrugged. "Our way out is clear. Let me check out the car before you start it."

"Really?" Mandy sighed. "Look, we're in the middle of Philly, and I'm a Flyer. No one's going to fuck with my car."

"If I was going to kill you," Aaron said flatly. "I'd rig your car or your apartment after practice. You're tired. You're comfortable with your surroundings. It's habit. You wouldn't even notice until you were a grease smear in the wreckage." He raised an eyebrow at Mandy's suddenly pale features. "The Colonel didn't bring me in because I'm pretty. I've got the same training as the guy coming after your mom."

Mandy exhaled hard. "Okay. Point made. Also, Aaron, you are fucking terrifying. So please call me Jeff before I piss myself. Fuck, I'll even take Jeffie." He rocked back a little. "I'm sorry about being a bitch last night. I know you're here to help."

Aaron looked down at the hand Mandy, Jeff , had extended. "Jeffie, really?"

"My mom, my brothers, Uncle Rick, pretty much anyone who knew me before I went semi-pro," Jeff shrugged with an embarrassed smile. "So is the olive branch working?"

"I don't like shaking hands," Aaron said abruptly. "I never did a lot of it. But, yeah, I'd appreciate if you'd stop being dick about me doing my job."

The hand vanished, tucked back into Jeff's pocket. "Wow, okay, so I thought only the Russians were that blunt." Jeff's grin became softer. "But we can work with that. At least you're communicating preferences now. So, I'll let you go first and check the car. I'll stay right behind you. Scout's honor."

Aaron shook his head, bewildered. He wasn't quite sure what Jeff wanted. People didn't yell then smile. Not sane ones at least in Aaron's experience. Sure, people yelled then went frustrated and apologetic. Aaron had experienced that his whole life. Jeff got frustrated. Then Aaron responded sharply to the poking, and Jeff relaxed.

Jeff's car was clean, luckily. Aaron took the keys from Jeff. There was the no point in straining the tired man's reflexes further. He took a roundabout way back to the apartment. It was best to start breaking routine now. Jeff dozed in the back seat. He only came aware long enough to have Aaron stop at another restaurant where they got dinner in the form of big containers of steamed veggies and chicken with roasted potatoes to eat at home.

Aaron ended up muscling Jeff out of the SUV and into the elevator. Evidently, the extra skating practice exhausted Jeff's reserves. The gear bag was heavy over Aaron's shoulders as he checked the apartment for tampering before letting Jeff in. Jeff dropped on the couch and made grabby hands at the food which Aaron carried to the kitchen. "Oh, come on man," Jeff groaned, flopping back onto cushions. "Go ahead and leave the gear bag anywhere. Practice'll be short tomorrow. I'll clean everything before the game on Friday."

The bag clattered even as Aaron tried to ease it down gently. Jeff didn't seem too concerned. He'd turned the TV on the NHL Network. "Go ahead and get yourself a plate," he said as he watched. "I'll be there in a moment." His eyes were narrowed at something on the screen. Curious, Aaron leaned against the wall to watch as well. "That's Oshurkov," Jeff explained when Aaron didn't leave. "He flattened me when we played the Caps. I barely managed to get between Oshurkov's elbow and Jean-Paul's head in time. I lost the fight pretty spectacularly. It made the highlight reels. They play it all the time. Like now apparently." He grimaced as the clip of him getting beaten into the ice rolled.

"He's bigger than you," Aaron murmured, startled, as he watched the fight. Hockey players fought like bar brawlers, all fists and rage, using their size as their preferred weapon. Everyone in practice had been bigger than him. Jeff himself was just under six feet and built like a tank. Even on the TV, it was apparent Oshurkov was broader at least, probably taller as well. So far, hockey players seemed to only come in one size and, if Jeff's fight was any indication, with zero finesse in hand-to-hand combat. "When do you play him again?"

"Three weeks," Jeff said confused. "Why?"

Aaron turned to go to the kitchen. "I want to learn to play hockey. Teach me how, and I'll teach you how to win a fight."

A grin split Jeff's face. He seemed satisfied, like he'd been waiting for this. "Deal."

It was relief to know Aaron did actually like the sport Jeff lived and breathed. The soldier had been clinical as he'd studied his books on hockey and watched the practice with a bored expression. Jeff had let his disappointment and frustration at the situation, and Aaron's utter impenetrability, leak over to the man himself. A bad temper ran in the family, though usually he was better about keeping a leash on it. Aaron hadn't even smiled during the free skate after practice. It had been bad enough El had pulled Jeff aside to make sure no one had offended Aaron somehow .

So, in the fashion of older brothers everywhere, Jeff had poked Aaron just to see if he could get a reaction. He realized afterwards just how stupid that had been. Still, he knew something now. Aaron's face and body didn't show jackshit about what was going on behind those pale eyes. Sure, there had been flashes of normality. Mostly around the support staff who dealt with Aaron only momentarily. In those few seconds, it had been like another person was standing there. Jeff suspected a long tour of duty left Aaron's social interaction skills rusty outside of the basics. Bezrondy came the closest to cracking the ice Aaron surround himself with, but Bez was like that. His sense of perspective made it hard not to like him. Plus, goalies were crazy anyways.

What had Jeff’s stomach churning happily was how badly Aaron wanted to play hockey. It was more of a gut feeling than anything the inflectionless offer provided evidence for. There was just something about the way Aaron had handled Jim's skates which, in retrospect, was hungry. The game was the sweetest kind of addiction in Jeff's experience. The rush of a win lasted until the next defeat came crushing down. Win or lose, if you loved the game, the desire play was a constant, gnawing urge. Until you salivated at the smell of scraped ice with the desire to pull on your skates and hear the crack of stick against puck. On the ice, Jeff and Aaron could actually meet.

Jeff followed Aaron into the kitchen. The soldier had two plates out and was scooping potatoes onto his, next to a small pile of chicken and vegetables. Jeff frowned. There was no way that was enough food. While Aaron might be smaller than most hockey players, he was obviously an athlete and had skated hard. Jeff was starving and loaded up his plate in hopes that Aaron would take it as a cue to add more food to his own. It didn't work.

They took their plates back to the living room. Melrose was deconstructing the Canadiens attempt at a new play style. Jeff turned it up to fill the silence. Melrose's bit ended before he noticed Aaron would occasionally mouth words to himself, repeating sentences silently like he was trying to put them into context.

Jeff put his empty plate of the floor and took a deep breath. Then he started talking about how full of shit Melrose was. He directed the conversation towards the ceiling, careful to give context for the jargon. Then he lured Aaron into a round of Mario Kart before they got ready for bed. Aaron actually smiled during, even when he kept losing. Jeff counted the wane expression as a win. He did notice Aaron lingering over the weapons before lights out. The soldier looked sad as he checked the bulletproof vests.

"You okay?" Jeff asked. The fact there was emotion was a little worrying.

Aaron stopped fussing and laid down. "Yeah." He turned on his side, curling away from Jeff. Jeff hit the light to let him hide in the dark. It wasn't much privacy, but Aaron wouldn't let Jeff give him anymore consideration. No matter how much he needed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean.
> 
> Names have been changed, but if you follow hockey, you'll probably figure it out.
> 
> In hockey, you shoot the puck to score a goal. Not that Aaron knows that. Clint Barton is canonically ambidextrous.


	32. He Ain't Heavy

The Flyers played the Sabres on Friday. The game went into overtime, and Bez got tired. The puck skidded off the tip of his catcher glove into the net. The Sabres won. Bez stormed off in the sort of dignified fury only a Russian could manage . Jean-Paul wasn't any calmer. Mandy winced as David Brouchard, the alternate captain, talked him down. There had been dirty shots on both sides, but one of the Sabres’ D-men had been especially vicious. Shawn, the youngest player on the team, earned fifteen stitches from a highstick the lineman didn't call. Coach hadn't let Jean-Paul fight. El Shue had tangled with the Sabres’ D-man instead and managed to land himself a suspension from the rest of the game.

The only bright side to the clusterfuck on Friday was watching Aaron get dragged into the bag skate on Saturday by Coach as emphasis. The entire team had to skate as fast as they could across the rink until they were exhausted. Then they kept skating until they puked. Coach's point about endurance was made quite clearly even though Aaron's form went to shit fast. While professional players were dropping to their knees, Aaron was still moving with a mean grin on his face as he taunted them with stories of his first drill sergeant. Even though chirping was a part of hockey, everyone verbally hassled Aaron a lot less after that. 

Sunday, everyone took it easy in preparation for Monday's game against the Hurricanes. Aaron started taking shots on the goal and putting pucks in past Mitch Layten, the alternate goalie. Jeff also got Aaron's skating form tightened up. To fight on the ice, you had to be able to skate. On solid ground, Aaron started showing Jeff how to lock an opponent’s arms high using his shoulders. It made jerking an opponent's jersey over his face easier.  
The Flyers beat the Hurricanes two to one. Jeff put the game point, his second goal of the season, on the board and knew his gut was right. Aaron was turning his luck around. It didn't hurt that Aaron's little trick had helped Jeff fight to a draw with Tom Gregson, one of the ‘Canes' alternate captains and a defenseman. Both teams took a five minute, and, for once, Jeff wasn't the butt-end of a highlight reel joke. It probably helped the Rangers’ shortest asshole had managed to get himself suspended again during the Rangers v. Leafs game.

So, Jeff went into the week high on winning and firm in the knowledge that Friday's away game against the Penguins was going to be fine. Teaching Aaron after practice turned into a spectator sport. The guys would clean up and line the bench to cheer Aaron on. Today was more stick handling. Jean-Paul had insisted on teaching Aaron himself in heavily accented English.

Jeff was down the ice so Aaron had someone to pass to. Bez was relaxing between the pipes of his goal watching Aaron trying to finesse the puck towards him. Jean-Paul was trying to be helpful and explain deking, but Aaron just couldn't dance with the puck like the French-Canadian could. El Shue jumped back on the ice in skates and pads. He was laughing as he called out, "Leave off, Jean-Paul. He's not the next Flyers forward. We've got too many of those anyways."

"So he is a D-man?" Jean-Paul shouted back at the defenseman.

El grinned fiercely, "Size isn't everything. Come on, Crosby. Get over here." Aaron pushed himself across the ice to El's side. "Okay, so being D-man is harder than those pretty boys running the puck," El explained skating backwards and nodding for Aaron to do the same. "D-men play in pairs. You probably noticed that. We back up Bez. J-Man -sorry, I mean Jeff-, Jean-Paul, and my brother are going to try to put a puck past Bez. We're going to make sure they don't." El waved over Jeff, Jean-Paul, and Brendan. "Take it easy boys. We're teaching him as we play."

Jeff paused and asked, "Pads?"

With a shrug, El looked at Aaron. "You probably do need equipment. There's going to be some contact."

"If we're taking it easy, I'll be fine," Aaron said, eyeing the offensive line preparing themselves. "They are going to take it easy, right?"

El just smirked. "Okay, soldier boy, just remember, watch the glass." He nodded to the panes lining the rink. “You’re going to have to turn your back on people to get the puck. You can see the reflection of who’s behind you in the glass.” Aaron nodded and braced himself.

The upside of the painful, humiliating game that followed was Aaron found he liked being a defenseman. He liked the teamwork and the way he got to protect Bez. Digging the puck out of the corner and away from the side of the rink, which El called the boards, was dirty, physical business with elbows, knees, and sticks flying. Even taking it easy, the other players still hit hard enough that Aaron’s ribs were decorated blue, black, and green. Bez had topped off Aaron's injuries with a bone crushing hug of thanks for a puck he had taken to the shoulder, rather than let Bez catch it in the mask. Jeff had hugged Aaron too, crushing him against the boards and laughing.

Aaron rolled with the celebration. He’d seen it on the ice before. The players would hug and tackle each other after a goal. When Jean-Paul was really excited, he’d forget himself and start kissing cheeks. It was kind of nice to be in the middle of the affectionate aggression. That rush of belonging carried him back to the apartment before the bruises started throbbing.

"You need pads," Jeff hummed in amusement as Aaron changed out of his sweat-soaked clothes and into fresh jeans. The Army and the locker room had left both Aaron and Jeff with a twisted sense of modesty, so sharing the small bathroom in the apartment was a regular occurrence. Jeff was lounging in the oversized tub soaking out his aches while Aaron patched himself up. "There's Tiger Balm in the cabinet. That'll help with the puck mark."

Aaron dropped his shirt and jeans into the laundry before pulling out the screw top container of salve. He lifted the thick tag like container hanging around his neck and dropped it over shoulder to hang down his back. "That isn't your tags," Jeff said, making it a question.

"No," Aaron agreed, smearing the balm across the elbow bruise on his sternum. "How long does this stuff take to soak in?"

"Give it ten minutes or so. Then I'll drag my ass out of here so you can have a turn." Jeff sat up and slicked the water out of his hair. "If it's not your tags, what is it?"

Aaron grimaced as he dabbed balm on the sprawling black mark the puck had left. "I'm never going to answer that, Jeff." He looked up in the mirror as Jeff stood up. Jeff grinned and waved him off, wrapping a towel around his waist.

"We're definitely getting you pads. Your back looks like a nightmare." Jeff took the balm from Aaron and smoothed it over a distinctly stick-shaped mark angled over Aaron's spine, crossing a gruesome scar. He used the chance to take a closer look at the container. Aaron knew what he was doing, but his silence was as good as permission. There were no distinguishing marks on the metal container, just a sliding lid. Jeff patted Aaron's hip to let him know he was done. Then, out of some impulse to finish the old ritual, he pressed a light, clumsy kiss to the back of Aaron's head, over the scruffy fuzz of military cut brown hair. Aaron glanced over his shoulder with a startled expression. "Sorry, habit. Usually it’s one of my little brothers I'm patching up after a game," Jeff admitted wryly.

"I don't mind," Aaron said still uncertain. He reached up to rub the spot Jeff had kissed.

Jeff wanted to hug him just to get rid of the lost look in Aaron's eyes. "Were you the baby of the family?"

"I don't...I don't know," Aaron said distantly. "I grew up in the system. If I had any siblings, they never told me, and I don't remember. Army chewed me up and spat me out right after I reached eighteen. Only family I've ever really had is your godfather and some of the people I work with."

Turning his back to Aaron, Jeff started to refill the tub. "What about a girlfriend?" he asked, curious now. He'd expected Aaron to shut down personal questions as fast as he had the ones about the container.

"No," Aaron replied as he put away the Tiger Balm.

There was something about the way he said 'no' that made Jeff suspicious. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. Aaron wasn't happy with his own answer. "There's someone though," Jeff said confidently. Aaron's shoulders went tight. Gently as he could, Jeff asked, "Can you tell me about him?"

Aaron shrugged. "His name was Jason. He's a soldier, and it just… Didn't work out. The situation made it stupid to begin with. Not that we cared. It was fun, but it meant something too."

"Man," Jeff said just loudly enough to be heard over the water. "I'm sorry it played out like that, but you can't just leave me hanging like that." He gave Aaron a crooked smile. "Was he hot?"

The comment startled a smile out of Aaron. "I liked how he looked," Aaron said small smirk. With a great deal of fondness he added, "He had blue eyes and fought like the devil. Most vicious Kali fighter I've ever seen. Taught me a few tricks."

Jeff's eyes went very, very wide. "That is definitely locker room talk I've never heard before." At Aaron's obvious confusion, he explained bluntly, "I expected to hear about how awesome his ass is and the size of his dick. It's kind of creepy how you went straight to how good he is at killing people." 

"Hey, I told you he had nice eyes," Aaron said defensively. "I even mentioned that first. It's not like Jason is one of those girls you guys talk about. Anyways, I don't like talking about people like they're food. I didn't like it in the Army. I'm not going to start now." Jeff tilted his head curiously. "I got treated like sub-human shit a lot. I'm hardly going to treat someone else like that, even if they can't hear it."

"How're you even real?" Jeff asked in confusion. "Seriously, you're like… I have no idea people like you existed, Aaron. That's not a bad thing." He added the last qualifier hurriedly when Aaron started to close off again. "You're sweet. It's just not good to let other people know you're sweet. Unless it’s a woman. Women like sweet. It's reassuring. Guys will make you pay for it." He didn’t mention the gay thing. Aaron had survived the military after all.

Aaron didn't look happy. "So I should act like Horne?" They both grimaced at the thought. Christian Horne, number 20, was a piece of work.

Jeff shuddered. "God, no. Just, do like you always do. Don't give them anything to hurt you with. The guys on the team are good. David, the Shueys, Bez, and Jean-Paul are good people. But you're not like anybody we meet in our world, okay? You're dangerous and sweet , and they can't understand that. So they'll run their mouths at you not knowing what the fuck they're actually saying." It felt like telling Freddy why he shouldn't argue with Dad about Mom all over again. Jeff was a good older brother. The fact the twins weren't emotional wrecks proved that.

"I can take care of myself, Jeff," Aaron pointed out. "Been doing it for a while now."

"Shut up and let me worry, asshole." A gentle punch rocked Aaron forward onto his toes. "Older brother's, well cousin's I guess, prerogative."

Aaron gave Jeff a small, very real smile before he slipped into the tub. The hot water was both welcome and stung like a bitch where the skin had split. Jeff wrapped himself comfortably in towels and tended to his feet while Aaron soaked. He didn't look at the gun Aaron had left on the tank of the toilet. It was easy to pretend sometimes that he and Aaron really were cousins reconnecting. All he had to do was willfully ignore everything that didn't fit his narrative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the wonderful Julorean.
> 
> The Rangers' shortest asshole is (of course) Sean Avery, who made the highlight reel quite often before the Rangers kicked him off (again). For those not familar with hockey, the highlight reels are the best/worst/most entertaining moments from all the hockey games that week.
> 
> If your curious what Aaron's shoulder looks like Google puck bruise (NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH).


	33. Rumble in Steel Town

Pittsburgh wasn't a friendly town for the Flyers. They were staying overnight since there was no game on Monday, but the fact they were on the Pens home territory meant they'd be resting, not clubbing. Aaron had thrown two hissyfits over the security at the CONSOL Energy Center. He'd only calmed down once it was arranged for him to get a security uniform and a master clearance badge.

Maybe that was a sign. The Penguins goalie was on fire that night. Jean-Paul managed a single goal before Horne got a penalty and was sent to wait out his two minutes in the box. The end of the first period was the end of the Flyer's momentum. The second period started on a powerplay, six of the Pens on five Flyers. The Penguins' “two-headed monster” of the Pens star centers was in fine form. Jeff watched from the bench as El got flattened. Coach put another two D-men on the ice after first goal. It didn't help. Even with Jeff and David playing the wings, the Flyers couldn't break the defensive line.

During the third period, behind the bench, Jeff heard a shout of, “Let’s go Flyers!” with the old rhythm, slow, deliberate, and steady as a heartbeat. The loud claps that went with the chant were drowned out by the booing from the stands. When he looked up, there was a figure in all black among the small contingent of black and orange clad fans. Aaron cupped his hands around his mouth and continued to chant with the other Flyers fans. The guys pointed up at the stands, waving and shouting at Aaron, relieved to have the support. Jeff hit the ice on his next shift with a grin. It didn’t last.

Despite the encouragement in the eleventh hour, Brendan managed to put the Flyers only other point on the board. It was a painful loss. The locker room after the game was very quiet. Most of the media had flocked to the Pens. So Aaron was less tetchy with fewer people to screen. The post-game media scrum was Aaron's least favorite part of the game.

The team made it out without anyone saying anything too offensive in front of the cameras. It hurt, but this time the Flyers really did have an off night. The bland, but clean and well appointed, hotel room was a relief. Jeff shared with El. To keep from breaking tradition, Aaron slept on the couch. The three of them had cleaned up and changed into sweats to watch some movie where things blew up and the plot didn't matter. A bad loss tended to take Jeff deep into his own head. El was quiet by nature. Having Aaron around made some things easier. He'd hauled up a case of Gatorade and another of water for El and Jeff to suck down between the room service chicken dinners they'd ordered. A third dinner with extra fruit salad and bread had mysteriously been included. Aaron took with a grateful smile for Jeff. The soldier had spent most of the game running up and down stairs. He needed to re-hydrate and re-fuel too.

It was a peaceful chance to recover until the banging on the door started. Aaron nearly jumped out of his skin. He did have his gun out before Horne yelled, "We're going out. Come on, get dressed."

"Fuck you, Horny," Jeff hollered back. "We're in for the night."

"Come on," Brendan shouted. El and Jeff both jerked upright. "It'll be fun."

El grimaced, "I've gotta go, J-Man. You coming?" He looked hopeful. His little brother was a solid player but was barely old enough to drink. There was no way El would let Brendan go out alone.

"Sure," Jeff groaned. Despite being only a couple years older than Brendan, his time in Tier II had gotten him his fill of wild times. Usually the more senior guys would make sure things didn’t get out of hand. This was Pittsburgh though, and there was safety in numbers. "If Horny's dragging the kids along, David is going to need the help. Aaron, you mind getting the door?"

Aaron rolled off the couch where he'd been finishing his fruit salad and opened the door to let several players stream in, including Brendan and Bez. Brendan immediately started digging through his brother's things. "Come on, Horny says he know a bar that always has hot chicks." When El made a face. "What? It's better than sitting around here and moping like you always do. I mean, you and Jeff just sit there and make yourselves miserable. It's not healthy."

Jeff rolled his eyes and reached into his bag for the collared shirt he wore with his suit. It'd get him into the club. El pulled on the shirt Brendan tossed him. "Does anyone have anything that'll fit soldier boy?"  
"I’ll borrow a shirt from David," Bez said with a cheery smile as he barged past the crowd at the door, holding out a black shirt. "Now, he looks like one of us." He all but stripped Aaron and shoved the shirt over the soldier’s head. Aaron allowed the manhandling, bemused. The fabric strained across Aaron’s shoulders . David and Aaron were both in good shape and close to the same size, but they carried the muscle padding their bodies very differently. It was still better than anything Aaron packed for himself. He grabbed his leather jacket to put over it.

"Out of curiosity?" Horne asked Bez from the door. "Did you intend to make J-man's cousin look like the bouncer at a gay club?"

His obvious scorn got him a punch in the shoulder from Jean-Paul. "Shut up, asshole. Come on."

"For the record," David yelled from the hallway. "This is a terrible idea. Everyone who is not legal is staying here and playing video games." There were a few cries of protest. "This is Pittsburgh. The cops will arrest you. No." His voice faded away as he herded the younger players back to someone's room to amuse themselves.  
Jeff watched Aaron slip into the bathroom with his bag, out of the direct line sight of the other men. Aaron slipped his holster into the small of his back. His knife was already in his boot. From his bag, he pulled a collapsible baton and a can of mace. The can went into his back pocket, but the baton was strapped to his forearm and covered by sleeve of the shirt. Aaron caught Jeff looking in the mirror and smiled thinly. It wasn't a smile Jeff had seen before. He didn't like it. There was nothing of the Aaron who'd talked about his boyfriend and everything of a predator.

"Come on," Horne snapped. Aaron’s entire body jerked towards the sound. "Let's go, guys." He clapped sharply to encourage them. The younger players eagerly led the charge for the taxis. David and Bez brought up the rear with Jeff and Aaron. The four of them piled into a taxi together. It was an uncomfortably hot press of bodies even though David and Aaron were on the small side. The cool air outside the club was a brief respite before they followed the others into the press of bodies and thumping music inside.

Aaron stayed close to Jeff as the Flyers trooped through the crowd towards the VIP section. It was the most space Jeff had ever been given in a place like this. While never actually touching anyone, Aaron still managed to make people move. "Very useful," Bez said happily. "Should come with us every time." He patted Aaron's shoulder fondly.

"Not really my scene," Aaron replied, but Jeff was fairly sure Bez couldn't hear over the ambient noise. Clearly, he added, "Watch yourselves. I saw at least one pickpocket." He stepped aside so David could negotiate their way past the velvet rope. The bouncer eyed Aaron but let them pass when Horne waved from the back. He’d appropriated three booths for the team in a semi-private corner.

"Shots," Horne ordered, pushing the glasses across the table as the four of them approached. The players grabbed their glasses, but Aaron left his on the table. "Oh, come on, jarhead." Horne rolled his eyes. "I thought you guys prided yourselves on shit like this."

Carefully, Aaron pushed the glass away. "Jarheads are Marines. I was Army. Also, I don't drink." His tone and expression were perfectly bland.

Jeff tensed. Horne was enough of an asshole to make a scene. "More for me," Bez said happily taking and downing Aaron's shot as well. El used Horne's sputtering as a chance to wave down the waitress and get Aaron a soda. Situation defused, Jeff downed his own shot and settled in to watch his teammates make fools of themselves in public.

The players had a few drinks together then the single ones spread out to prowl the local scenery. The married men and the uninterested remained in the VIP section. Jeff hit the scotch harder than he probably should have. It left him lolling sleepily against the padded booth. He discovered Aaron was a pretty comfortable backrest after his third drink.

The soldier had chosen the back part of the booth to keep an eye on the whole room. Jeff settled his spine along Aaron's shoulder and waved at the waitress to take a fresh drink order since his head was starting to spin. Bez was on Aaron's other side, talking to the soldier in Russian and English and gesturing with the vodka which had magically appeared in his hand. To Jeff's surprise, Aaron replied in broken Russian.

"Your accent is very good," Bez said with pleasure as the waitress came over.

"I've got a toddler's vocabulary though," Aaron sighed.

Bez laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "We keep practicing then. Another Coke?"

"Water, please," Aaron replied easily, with a smile that made her blush with pleasure. "How're you feeling, Jeff?"  
Jeff lolled his head against Aaron thoughtfully. "Water too, please. Thanks, brother." Aaron tensed. Elbowing him gently, Jeff murmured, "Shut up, asshole. You earned it."

Shouting interrupted Aaron's hesitant reply. Horne had gotten into a shoving match with two big guys on the dance floor, one of whom was wearing a Penguin's sweater with 87 on the back. Horne's defense partner jumped in so it was one on one as a shoving match broke out.

"Shit," David hissed from the other booth where he and Jean-Paul were holding court with the more sedate crowd. Jeff scowled as he got up. Brawling in a bar was going to get them a headline on Deadspin, but he had to back up his team.

Aaron slipped out, going beneath the table, and said, "Get everyone moving towards the door, Jeff. I've got this." He held out his jacket for Jeff to take. With David's black shirt, he could almost pass for club security.  
The Flyers sure as hell couldn't stay now that they'd been recognized. Not in Pittsburgh. Not when they should have been licking their wounds. David and Bez got the younger players hustling out. Most of them were just barely legal and a bar fight in Pittsburgh would damage to their careers, possibly fatally. El and Brendan were the first out the side door. David shoved Jean-Paul out next. The kid was next in line for Captain, and David protected him as fiercely as if the winger was one of his sons.

Jeff slipped through the crowd, warning his teammates off the brewing fight. Aaron slipped through the crowd to and into the space Horne and his new friends had made with their flailing. The older players saw backup headed Horne's way and made for the exits. It was bad enough several people already had out cellphones with cameras pointed towards the scuffle. Aaron stepped in with his back to the majority of the crowd. Jeff couldn't hear what he was saying, but Horne's partner had both arms around the big defense man and was pulling him back towards the door.

The guy without the Penguin's sweater took a swing at Horne. Aaron somehow managed to re-direct the swing into thin air. It was strange watching the dance Aaron did as Horne tried to retaliate. At least half a foot shorter than everyone else in the circle, Aaron managed to sucker punch Horne hard enough to let the other D-man pull his partner away. Then the soldier turned around and blocked the tackle aimed at Horne, dumping the Pens fan to the floor seemingly without touching him.

While the Pens fan and his friend were trying to right themselves, Aaron slipped back into the crowd. Jeff searched for him visually, standing by the side door, and nearly jumped out of his skin when Aaron said from behind him, "Time to go."

"Christ," Jeff hissed. "How the hell… Aaron, you're not fucking human sometimes ."

Aaron grinned and pulled Jeff outside with a hand on the shoulder. "More than you know, brother."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean.
> 
> Two headed monster refers to Evengi Malkin and Sidney Crosby.


	34. The Sound of a Windmill Goin' 'Round

Aaron was waiting for the other boot to drop. The Flyers had won the game against the Capitols. (Jeff’s show-down with Oshrukov was delayed due to Oshrukov’s banged-up ankle.) He spent all the time he could on the ice with El and the other defensemen, learning the trade. During practice, he skated laps backwards, watching the stands. Bez brought him pads and strapped them on him until he learned how to do it himself. Horne, with his sick sense of humor, put 87 and Crosby on the back of a Flyers jersey and presented it to Aaron. Aaron made sure to only wear it during closed practices.

At the apartment, he and Jeff flicked around tennis balls with their sticks, worked out together, and installed security improvements. They talked the kind of talk Aaron hadn't heard since the Army and never had for themselves. Marissa was beautiful and a damn good goalie to boot. Two years later, Jeff was still a little hung up her. Aaron listened and told him about Jason in return. They exchanged stories about their respective hang-ups ranging from fond to raunchy. Jeff talked about the Juniors and watching his career circle the drain before it even started. Aaron talked a little bit about the system and a little more about the guys he knew overseas. Whenever he clammed up uncomfortably, Jeff would start talking hockey again.

They watched the NHL network and read Down Goes Brown when they needed a laugh, Jeff explaining the jokes to Aaron. It was total immersion in a life Aaron was starting to love. Oddly, he felt sharper now, more in focus than when he'd first come home. Jeff insisted on feeding Aaron on the same diet the players had. Protein shakes, fresh vegetables, and lean meat put back the weight the desert had eaten. Jeff was a good cook. Years of taking care of his brothers made it a necessary skill. With their metabolisms, he spent a lot of time cooking enough to keep them full.

After practices, Aaron taught Jeff how move a bigger opponent with elbows and twisting limbs or where to hit a man to topple him even with pads. Jeff put the moves to work during games. Even out of fights, it was useful to unbalance an opponent. Some of the others joined Aaron's lessons. He dumped them on their asses with ease when they tried to get smart. Jeff just pointed and laughed. They were used to being the biggest guys in the room. Not that size mattered when you couldn't keep your feet under you. Aaron was always gentle when he was kicking ass, well aware of the players' fear of injuries.

The Flyers played the Bruins, and El bought Aaron a 33 sweater in the Bruins away pattern. It took Aaron asking a discrete question to realize that the players called their jerseys sweaters. He shot left whenever he wore it. No one even gave him any shit for his attachment to that Bruins sweater. Aaron wanted to be a D-man, and they respected that. After all, they all had their secrets hidden in the closets at their parents' houses. Everyone had a hero. Everyone had worn someone's sweater before they got their own.

Aaron started letting Jeff have the guys over in small groups. Mostly El, Brendan, and Bez showed up to play video games. They mourned the losses and celebrated the wins. Aaron drank soda, and they drank beer. Bez fed Aaron Russian cuisine and insisted they speak Russian to each other. The goalie's and Aaron's crazy seemed to match well. Sometimes the two of them would put their heads together and barely whisper even though they were speaking a different language. Jeff suspected Bez knew more about Aaron than anyone else on the team, including Jeff himself. He also knew Bez would never tell. Goalies are crazy.

True to Jeff's gut feeling, The Flyers stacked up enough wins to make the playoffs and round two with the Capitols and their captain, Oshurkov.

The Flyers would take a bus to DC early on game day. Mom and Rick called Jeff to assure him they'd be there. Aaron freaked out over security again. It was practically a ritual for everywhere that wasn't the Wells Fargo Center. The Verizon Center had helpfully forwarded a security uniform, so Aaron could stalk Jeff from the stands. Until the game, Aaron would don an assistant trainer's jacket and jeans to blend in with the other support staff.

After a short practice on home ice, all the Flyers dragged themselves on the bus for the three hour drive to Washington DC. Brendan had his laptop out for the drive, trying to teach Aaron to like something other than classic rock from before 1990. It was a dedicated, single-man campaign which dated back to Brendan and his brother hanging out at Jeff's apartment. According to El, Brendan made a good-faith attempt to buy all the MP3s Amazon had to get a wide enough variety to entice Aaron. Aaron and Brendan had headphones hooked into a splitter so they could both listen.

They had reached the Canadians interpretation of traditional Irish music. Aaron was nodding to Brendan, who typed something into the list he was keeping. Apparently, Aaron had found another acceptable genre. Jeff just hoped it was better than that Russian punk rock Bez had gotten Brendan to introduce to Aaron.

The players pressed their faces to the window as the bus pulled up. The Verizon Center was already packed. The crowds sprawled over the sidewalk into the street. At the Flyer's drop-off near the main door, familiar faces in black were already lined up. Jack's team had already integrated with the locals. Aaron ducked down to a crouch in the aisle and exchanged his jacket and polo for the security uniform he'd been sent. A couple of guys wolf-whistled at the show of skin. Most of them had gotten over the gruesome scar notched into the muscle near Aaron's spine. Some still winced and looked away.

When the door opened and the Flyers started getting out, Aaron slipped out the back window of the bus. He joined the other security personnel, Jack handing him a master badge as they passed each other. Aaron hooked it to the lapel of his jacket and followed the Flyers inside, shadowing Jeff safely to the locker room. Jeff smuggled Aaron’s gear in with his own so he could change after the media left, including the unmarked black practice jersey Aaron wore outside of Philadelphia. Aaron liked to get a feel for the sightlines to the rink.

The Flyers got ice time to warm up before the game. As they skated, the Caps were coming off off. Aaron pulled on his own skates and pads over his street clothes. Coach let him do a few laps of the ice, then waved him over for some one-on-two with Jeff and Jean-Paul. It was the no-contact blocking drills between Jean-Paul and Aaron that caught the Caps attention. Aaron was good, but his play style was all instinct and physicality rather than experience. The Caps who had lingered after practice were talking among themselves on the sidelines, wondering who the hell the call-up was.

The whispers made Jeff flinch, remembering when the phrase had referred to him. When a professional hockey team needed extra people, the players were called up from a Tier II 'farm' team. If the player impressed the right people, he was drafted. It was how Jeff had gotten on the Flyers. It was also the most reasonable explanation for a strange face on the ice with the Flyers' star player. Normally, call-ups were announced. Finally, Oshurkov jumped the wall back to the ice and flagged down David as he skated over. "Who is new kid?" he asked in cheerfully accented English.

"Aaron?" David asked, startled. He glanced over his shoulder and shot a desperate expression at Jeff. "He is… a D-man. We called him up because of Horne's bad knee. He shouldn't be playing this game unless something untoward happens."

Jeff nodded to David, a subtle gesture between teammates, skating over and spraying snow from his skate blades over Oshurkov. The slight made the Russian captain turn on heel and glare. "Get off the ice, you red bastard," Jeff said with an unfriendly smile. "Unless you want to start this rodeo early."

Oshurkov's big grin took its own turn for hostile. He said something in Russian that made Bez glare. Then he added, "How's your jaw, Mandy?"

"Healed up," Jeff said sharply. "Your's still made of glass?" He felt the air shift behind his right shoulder as Aaron took up a defensive position behind him. El Shue had settled in next to Oshurkov, prepared to stop anything before it started.

"Oi, ca ve!" David pushed his stick between Jeff and Oshurkov. "Save it for the game, you two." He nodded to El, who helped the Cap off the ice with a polite, Canadian smile firmly in place.

David exhaled and shook his head. "It's fine, Aaron, Jeff. Go run drills. Aaron, get Jeff defused. We don't need a penalty opening the damn game."

Aaron nodded, taking Jeff's arm and moving back towards the center of the ice. Jeff didn’t even realize how tense he was until Aaron was prying his stick out of his hands. "You need to go re-tape this," Aaron said firmly. "I'll come with you." He dragged Jeff back to the visitors' locker room to cool off.

Jeff settled on the bench to peel off the tape on his stick. Aaron settled next to him so their shoulders were pressed tight. He started re-taping his own stick, the Warrior AK-27 Jean-Paul had gotten him after the Bruins game, with deliberate movements. "You're letting him get into your head, Jeff," Aaron said softly over the squeak of the tape.

"Bullshit," Jeff snapped, unwrapping two winds of tape which he'd messed up. "I was just getting Oshurkov off your back."

Aaron snorted. "You don't get angry, Jeff. Not unless you do. Right now, you're fucking homicidal. And believe me, I know what that looks like." He took the tape and stick from Jeff. With careful fingers, he undid Jeff's work. As he re-wound the tape just like Jeff preferred, he said evenly, "You want a fight too much. You can't go in wanting to prove yourself to this asshole." He waited until Jeff looked at him to explain, "Winning a fight isn't just about beating the crap out of the other guy, Jeff. When fists start flying, you need to see the gaps in his defense, the direction of the next punch. You can't see a vendetta. Emotions make you sloppy, make you think about the wrong things." The words made Aaron shift uncomfortably, like he'd rather be doing this in Russian. "Don't let him rile you up. Just keep smiling until he's furious. Then, let him drop gloves first. Don't stop hitting until someone pulls you off."

Jeff took his stick from Aaron and ran a hand over the tape. It was done perfectly, just like Jeff had taped it himself. "How do you do it, Aaron? You're the ice man when we practice this shit. How do you do that?"

"It doesn't matter," Aarons shrugged. His gaze was fixed on the blade of his own stick as he  
wrapped. "You pull a trigger, you shoot a puck. You train for that moment. You train until the moment after that doesn't matter anymore. If Oshurkov comes after you, remember that it doesn't matter. When he calls your mother a whore, it doesn't matter. When he draws blood, you just keep coming until you're stopped. You can't care about the outcome. That's not the job."

Jeff leaned his head against Aaron's shoulder to consider the advice. "You're fucked up, you know that right?" He grinned as he felt Aaron's shrug. Then he exhaled deeply. "Right. It doesn't matter. Only thing that matters is shooting that puck. The training will make sure it ends up in the net. I'll try, Aaron. Can't promise anything."

"Hey, it's not about me," Aaron said, pushing Jeff away and propping his stick against the bench. "I need to get changed. Don't worry too much, Jeff. You'll do fine. I'll be cheering. So will your mom and the Colonel." His lips quirked into a crooked smile as he unlaced his skates. "I think you’re warmed up enough. Relax until game time, or your nerves'll be shot before you even start."

Jeff leaned back against the lockers and breathed like Aaron did late at night. Aaron sponged down his torso. Then he tossed the wet rag to Jeff to get his back scrubbed. While the locker room smell never seemed to bother Aaron, the man was borderline fastidious about his personal hygiene. Jeff was used to the quick sponge baths Aaron always took after practice. Several layers of deodorant finished the ritual. Aaron shrugged on his security jacket, straightened his badge, and went to clear the hallways around the visitors' area. When he left, Jeff leaned back against his locker, closed his eyes, and focused on that moment right before the goal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the lovely Julorean.
> 
> 33 is the number of Zdeno Chara, captain of the Bruins and defenseman.
> 
> 87 belongs to Sidney Crosby of the Penguins. The Pens and the Flyers have a long standing rivalry.
> 
> Chapter title from 'Soldier of Fortune' by Deep Purple.


	35. Sky is Burnin'

Aaron loved hockey, but he hated these games. There was no way to have full coverage security on a hockey player on the ice in front of several thousand people. It gave Aaron hives every time Jeff left the locker room for the jeers and cheers of a crowd. He'd asked Bez to look out for Jeff too. The goalie probably knew a little too much about a lot of things. Not enough to get Bez in trouble, just Aaron. Aaron trusted him though. The chaste kiss on the mouth, a cultural quirk, that Bez had given Aaron one drunken night at Jeff's apartment was promise enough to keep their conversations secret.

So Aaron had one ally on the ice who knew to get Jeff down. Jack and his team were good, but the Verizon Center had a network of catwalks and lighting rigs that put the Wells Fargo Center to shame. Aaron prowled along the walkway circling the rink as the seats filled with red, white, and blue clad fans. There was some black and orange too which made Aaron smile. Men in suits ranging from FBI-cheap to high-end tailoring stood menacingly around the entrances to the box seats. The Capitols made the play-offs, so all the politicians were showing up for face-time in front of the cameras. On one hand, there was probably more security here than at any other game Jeff had played. The flip side being, there were more dangerous, trained personnel for the rogue agent to blend in with. There were just too many security teams here for all of them to have synced with each other, plus a scattering of individual bodyguards. The credentials to get a gun inside weren't hard to forge with the right resources.

If this had been Aaron's job, and he would have wanted to make a statement, this was the game for it. Killing a retired Air Force Captain turned intelligence officer's son in the nation’s capital would garner a lot of attention. More attention than Byer and his second could afford. If you wanted to expose them and hurt them at the same time, it would be the easiest place.

The stands looked fairly normal for a game even with the extra security. So Aaron didn't start much when the floodlights went down and the spotlights started up along with a ringing beat over the ice. The cheering picked up again as the players skated out onto the ice. The crowds' noise lasted through the player introductions until the breathless moment of the puck drop which started the game. Aaron paused to watch the face-off. Jean-Paul was starting against Oshurkov. 24 and 93, Jean-Paul’s linemates, were chomping at the bit. Aaron’s core went taut like he was out there backing up Bez. The puck clattered to the ice and everyone breathed out as Jean-Paul knocked it loose, down the ice towards the Capitols’ goal. It was sheer chance Aaron caught a glimpse of some kids, siblings probably, looking up instead of at the rink where the Flyers were harassing the Capitols’ defense.

There was movement up on the catwalks. The lighting rigs should have been electronic, controlled from the ground. Still, a rigger wouldn't be out of place as a preventative measure. Reaching up, Aaron tapped the throat mike he'd asked for this time. "Team Leader this is D-Man. Over."

"D-man, this is Team Leader," Jack replied evenly. "Send it."

"Team-Leader interrogative: do we have men on the catwalks? Over."

Jack paused then said, "D-man, your transmission came broken but readable. The locals have no one in the sky. Again, we do not have men on the catwalks. Over."

Aaron hissed between his teeth. Quickly he forced out, "Solid copy, Team Leader. Be advised, I see movement in the sky. Please verify. How copy, over."

"Solid copy, D-man," Jack said, suddenly tense. "Stand by for confirmation, over." Reaching beneath his jacket, Aaron fingered the butt of his gun as he waited. "Southwest elevator post is not responding, D-man," Jack came back. "Recon and report in, over.

"Wilco, Team Leader," Aaron said as he jogged down the stairs. "D-man out." He lifted his hand from his throat mike and broke into a full sprint. Jack could smooth things over with the locals. He shouldered past the people milling about outside the stands. Even the drunks were smart enough to start moving out of his way. There was a security guard next to the service lift that led to the maintenance levels surround the top of the Verizon Center. The guard was in his mid-forties and overweight with no visible marks on him. He was also dead. It could have been a heart attack, but Aaron didn’t believe in luck that bad. "Break-break, all channels. The guard on the southwest elevator is dead. There's been a breach. Over."

Aaron pulled the Glock from the shoulder rig he'd hidden under his jacket. It was a Glock 30 model, subcompact and used a .45 round. There was enough stopping power there to put down a horse at close range. "D-man this is Team Leader, get your ass up there. We've got the package." Jack said over the radio. "How copy, over."

"Copy, Team Leader. D-Man going in live. Out." Aaron exhaled slowly to ride out the first surge of adrenaline. Then he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button up to the maintenance levels. As the elevator rose, he tucked himself against the wall next to the door. It'd buy him some time if there was a hostile waiting at the elevator door. There was no one in the steel and cement halls that ringed the upper level. Ladders with guide lines ran up to the catwalks which crisscrossed the ceiling. Lengths of cloth fluttered in the breeze from the air conditioner. They were there to help reflect the light and conceal the ugly steel girders in the ceiling. With all the lights on the ice, Aaron was invisible as he carefully climbed one of the  
ladders, crouching down on the grate that made up the floor of the catwalks. He waited there in the odd half-light above the lighting fixtures for his eyes to adjust.

With the flashing lights down below, it was hard to see any distance. So Aaron oriented himself towards where he'd seen the silhouette. There was a lot of ground up here above the roaring crowds. It was the perfect place for rifle work. Aaron tried not to think about if Jeff was on shift, skating across the ice where the ebb and flow of the game might give someone a clear shot. Keeping crouched, he moved forward down the catwalk looking for his target. His ears were no good with the noise from below.

Painstakingly, he moved down each of the catwalks, clearing them in a grid pattern. Every strobe flash from below sent a spark of adrenaline up his nerves. It was too close to muzzle flash. He wanted to get on the radio and tell Jack to warn Bez and El but doing so would force Jeff off the ice. Aaron was willing to let Jeff take the risk for the moment if it meant letting him play.

There was a flicker of the shadow thirty feet out in a rigger's platform between two crossbeams. When Aaron moved closer it resolved into the figure of a big man with a deer rifle. The gun was civilian, single shot, bolt-action with a cheap scope that shook loosely as the man spasmed when the lights strobed. Sweat gleamed on features gone jaundiced with ill health.

Aaron leveled his gun with his upper body braced against the railing. He waited until the cheering peaked and the booming music started before he squeezed the trigger. The rifleman dropped dead to the platform. Aaron had angled the shot to keep the mess from falling on the people below. Still, part of the skull had landed in the struts. Holstering his weapon, Aaron swung over the edge of the catwalk and landed on a strut. He stood upright, holding his arms out to keep his balance. It was a quick walk over to the curved piece of bone and dripping meat.

Some of the blood had fallen down into the crowd. Probably a few bone fragments were dispersed down there too. Not enough to be noticed. This was a hockey game. Aaron picked up the bone and walked over the rigger's platform to drop it into the puddle of blood there. A quick glance, even with the damage, confirmed this was not Byer's rogue agent. The track marks between the fingers confirmed it. No agent would have years’ worth of scar tissue and the yellow skin. It would have been noticed.

The shooter was a lackey. Something keyed for someone like Aaron, a distraction. Sure enough, Aaron glanced down at the ice. End of period. The Flyers would be heading back to the locker room. The media would be hanging around outside. "Team Leader this is D-Man, shooter in the sky neutralized. Shooter was not alone. Primary target is still at large. Again, clear and present threat still exists. Over."

"Copy that, D-Man," Jack said breathlessly. He was on the move too. "We've got eyes on the Flyers. They're in the locker room. No media entry. Over."

"Fuck," Aaron hissed, holstering his gun. "I'm on my way to Jeff, Team Leader. Out." There were a lot of catwalks and metal beams between Aaron and the closest stairwell access. He jumped off the platform and caught himself on one of the struts. Swinging his body around that, he threw himself over to the next set of cross beams. From the cross beams, he launched himself over the railing onto a catwalk, barely a touching the railing before hitting the next set of struts. There was a rhythm to it. Aaron didn't look down, didn't look past the next jump except to orient himself towards the shiny metal sign marking his exit. Not even when his foot slipped.

He was sweat-soaked and panting when he scrambled down the ladder to the maintenance level then banged through the door in front of the stairs. It may have been locked initially, but not that slowed Aaron down much. The doors were installed by the lowest bidder. There was a guard at the foot of the stairs. A hard blow to the kidneys kept him from impeding Aaron.

"D-man, this is Team Leader, we're moving the Flyers out of the locker room into the medical room after second period. No sign of any hostiles. Over," Aaron's radio buzzed, referring to the room set aside for checking on player's with head injuries. Aaron ran faster. Jeff would be vulnerable in transit. He made it to the locker room before the players were moved. The flush of relief when he saw the stocky men in black standing guard at the door to the visitor's locker room made him shake a little. They didn't stop him from slamming through the locker room itself.

"Vierge, Aaron," David swore. "Is that blood?" He was very pale and very calm. Something had happened.

Aaron glanced down at his hands, which were slicked rusty red from cleaning up. "It's not mine. Where's Jeff?"

"Here," Jeff said, appearing from the sinks. "I'm here. Aaron, what the fuck is going on?" His face was wet from splashing water on it.

"How soon until you have to be back on the ice?" Aaron asked, leaning back against a locker to catch his breath and to keep himself from reaching for Jeff.

"Now," Coach said grimly. "Is it safe? I can pull him if we need to."

Aaron shook his head. "Get back on the ice, Jeff. I've got this." He flinched as a big hand eased around his shoulder. Bez's gaze was worried beneath the Star Wars imagery on his helmet and mask. Aaron managed a wan smile for the goalie. "I've got this," Aaron repeated to Bez, also catching El and Horne's eyes. "Get out there and fucking well win, yeah?"

"Okay," Bez rumbled patting Aaron's shoulder. Even when he was being gentle Aaron still had to brace himself. Now, Aaron let himself sway with each pat. "Be safe." Aaron nodded, high fiving and bracing himself against shoulder bumps as the team headed back for the bench. El lingered, pulling him close and asking quiet questions that made Aaron shake his head. Brendan just shot a worried look at the two of them. Jean-Paul was anxious enough he landed two kisses, one on each of Aaron's cheeks, and spoke only French as he passed. Aaron tugged him back for a hard hug. Despite being the star of the Flyers, Jean-Paul was just a kid. Brendan circled back for his own hug before Aaron shoved him out the door. They needed to have their minds on the game. Not worrying about Aaron.

End of second period would be the final, best chance to get to Jeff. To do that would require being in place before the Flyers took five. It was a solid plan, allowing for minimal collateral damage. Unless someone tipped your hand early and got caught instead.

The medical room was a quiet, grey area with a bed and some scanning equipment. A doctor in an NHL sweater was checking some supplies in the cabinets against the wall. Aaron walked through the door. He covered the last few feet at a sprint, slamming the man's head into the metal cabinets.

The 'doctor' bounced back by grabbing Aaron's arm and throwing him across the room. They didn't talk. That wasn't their training. A vicious series of blows landed on Aaron's back and ribs as he tried to find his feet. Aaron mule kicked back to buy himself some space. It wasn't much.

On his feet, Aaron burst hard, his fist connecting with a sternum. Body blows smacked meatily onto ribs and into soft spots. Scratches were aimed at each other's eyes, snap kicks at knees. Aaron got in a good hip toss, sending the man into the cabinets and scattering the contents across the floor. He managed a good stomp to the ankle before the other agent was back on his feet.

They circled each other warily. Byer's rogue was thirty pounds heavier and three inches taller than Aaron. He knew how to use what extra he had. Another flurry of blows brought them close together. Aaron’s usual tactics of crippling blows worked best against slower opponents. Facing another agent with training and the speed to back it weighted luck more heavily than Aaron was used to. A misstep onto a roll of gauze twisted Aaron’s leg out from his fighting stance.

The other agent jumped on the opening. Rather than letting the kick crush his knee, Aaron crumpled with the blow. He managed to channel some of the momentum from the fall into a flailing kick that scraped along the other man’s shin. Even as it barely connected, it was obvious Aaron was at a disadvantage. If Jeff wouldn’t be the one to pay for Aaron’s laxness, Aaron would have stayed down to ensure a swift end. Instead, he rolled away so the boot trying to crush his skull just grazed him, making his ears ring.

Aaron got up to a grapple he couldn't break. His arm was twisted upwards and a hot flash of pain told him he'd been stabbed. A scalpel probably, judging from the medical tools scattered over the floor and the size of the wound. A scalpel that was digging for an artery and uncomfortably close to his kidneys. Aaron broke the arm lock by popping his shoulder out. The sick crack made his opponent pause. It gave Aaron the moment he needed to slam his thumb through the man's eye in a desperation move.

From there, it was about who could hurt the other the fastest and most severely. Open handed, clawing blows were interspersed with hammering fists, elbows, knees, and feet. They rolled around on the floor together until it was impossible to tell which one of them was whimpering in pain at each jostle. 

The thought of this bastard touching Jeff made Aaron very ugly, even with one arm. A lucky blow crumpled the other agent's temple. Aaron locked his legs around his opponent's body and broke the man's neck by pulling with the bend of his elbow. He didn't have enough strength for a clean break. It just popped the vertebrae out of place rather than snapping through. Aaron had to shake the man's body back and forth with his legs before he finally died.

Then, exhausted and still bleeding, he pulled himself up to sit against a table leg. Reaching up, Aaron switched back on his throat mike. “Break-break, all channels, this is D-man. Threat neutralized. Clean up in medical room. Out.” He’d lost his earpiece somewhere during the fight and couldn’t hear the response. The other agent’s stolen radio, the object which had given him away, was tuned into Jack’s frequency, but being soaked in blood made it crackle too much to use.

The mission was over. Aaron Crosby was defunct. There would be no more ice time with Jeff or practices with Bez. Protocol meant Aaron being whisked away, the Flyers being told he was dead or recalled to active duty. He’d never see them again except for the impersonal interviews on television. It didn’t make him regret protecting Jeff, but, for once, he didn’t want to disappear into the night. Zipping his jacket further closed, Aaron grabbed gauze with his good hand and stuffed it around the bleeding wound. Some more groping produced tape and gauze patches which Aaron used to cover the scrape on the side of his head. When he felt confident he wouldn’t visibly leak, he stood up, hissing at the scream of protest from his shoulder, and started walking towards the visitors’ locker room.

It took everything he had not to sway like a drunkard and call attention to himself. Luckily, his security pass was laminated and wiped clean. He made it safely to the locker room and the closet where the Flyers’ spare gear was stored. Among the bags of sticks, pucks, and pads, Aaron made a nest to support his bad shoulder and keep the scalpel from moving. He grabbed one of Horne’s spare sweaters and added it to the blood-soaked wad of gauze in his jacket. Safely out of sight, confident he’d at least get to find out who’d won the game, Aaron closed his eyes and let himself slip into unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed by Julorean.


	36. Don'tcha Know You Are a Shooting Star

“Jeff,” Coach called shakily from the storage closet. “I need you and Bez over here.” The media was long gone. The players were back in their slacks and collared shirts, looking professional for the after-game interviews. Jeff and Bez dragged themselves off the bench they were resting on and exchanged shrugs of confusion with the others. That calm lasted until Jeff saw what exactly Coach was staring at.

Aaron was chalky white. His lips were so pale it was hard to see them. Even through the heavy material of the black jacket there was something sickeningly wrong with his left arm. The 20 sweater beneath him was stained red wherever there was white or orange. Bez rumbled something very profane in Russian. Jeff swallowed down bile as he reached out saying, “Aaron... Aaron, brother, can you hear me?”

Bez caught Jeff, pulling him back. “Don’t startle him!” The goalie’s reflexes were good. Aaron jerked forward with eyes half open. His fingers closed around the air where Jeff had been leaning forward. There was no recognition in his eyes. No indication he would have realized who he was killing before the job was done. The trainer who’d been swooping in to help backed up quickly as well.

“Aaron!” Jeff yelped. The startled cry brought Aaron back to himself. It was a visible snap from blank-eyed soldier to the D-man in training the Flyers were used to. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Jeff babbled, leaning forward again, waving off the trainers. Bez’s hand stayed firmly wrapped around Jeff’s shoulder. “Stay still, okay? Coach, we a need a doctor.” Carefully, Jeff reached out and delicately touched Aaron’s good shoulder. When it didn’t get his arm ripped off, he crept forward into the closet to get a better look. “What the fuck happened?”

“Mission’s over,” Aaron said quietly. “You’re safe now. I just... We won?”

“We won,” Bez said reassuringly. “Five to three. Jeff nearly made Oshurkov cry. Was beautiful.” Someone passed him more gauze which he added to the sodden mess spilling out of Aaron’s jacket.

“You could have seen the game on TV from a hospital bed,” Jeff said aggrieved. “Fuck. Aaron, there’s a puddle under you.” Carefully, he helped Aaron crawl out of the closet to the tile floor of the locker room. There were several sharp gasps and hisses as the other players saw the damage.

Aaron groaned a little as Jeff propped him up against a bench. “Mission’s over. I gotta fade now. I just wanted to know how the game ended.” He gave Jean-Paul a bloody mouthed smile as the young forward ran over with a first aid kit. El was suddenly there as well, helping Jeff strip Aaron out of the ruined jacket. Wads of reddened gauze tumbled to the floor.

“Shit,” Horne said, ill and tight. “There’s something in his side guys.”

Bez opened the first aid kit and took out a towelette. He dabbed the blood away from the wound after El peeled Aaron’s shirt away. An inch and half of metal protruded. El made a choking noise, swallowing hard and looking away. Jeff looked back at Aaron’s dislocated shoulder, which at least was something he’d seen before. Brendan barged through his teammates who had crowded around to see. He was flushed with upset as he collapsed next to Aaron, careless of the clean oxford shirt he was wearing, and wrapped the soldier in a careful hug. “You look dead,” he said shakily, voice cracking.

“Still here,” Aaron reassured him. “It looks worse than it is.” He flinched as Jeff removed the gauze and tape from his head to look at the wound there.

“Bullshit,” Jeff disagreed. “What do you think, Horny? That sure as fuck looks like concussion material to me.”

Bez grunted in agreement as Horne replied, “Fuck yeah, it is.”

“You were in fight, yes?” the goalie asked in English to make sure he was understood. “Bad one. With someone like you?”

Aaron started to nod, then stopped when Jeff hissed at him not to move his head. “Yeah. It’s okay. The bad guy can’t hurt anyone now.”

Bez waved the words away. “You will leave now?”

Everyone else froze. Jeff felt his stomach drop like he’d swallowed lead. It was the logical progression. Aaron was here to stop someone like himself from hurting Jeff. He’d said the mission was over and had the injuries to prove it. There was no reason for him to stay anymore. “I’ll get picked up at the hospital,” Aaron answered honestly, dopey from the blood loss. “Re-deployed.”

“You’re Jeff’s bodyguard,” El said sharply. “Can’t we just hire you to protect the team? Hey, Jean-Paul, you can afford him, right?”

“Oui,” the Quebecoise said brightly. “I haven’t signed the agreement on the new apartment. David, can I stay with you and your boys another season?” The older player sighed and agreed in French. “Then we go tell the one giving the orders I will hire Aaron.”

One of the players, who was out of the loop by virtue of not spending much time around Aaron, asked, “I thought he was Jeff’s cousin?”

“It’s complicated,” David said. “Let it be.”

“I don’t work quite like that,” Aaron rasped, leaning into Brendan and letting Bez dab the dried blood from his hair. “It’s okay, guys. Really.”

“Non c’est pas ‘okay’,” Jean-Paul snarled.

Jeff murmured, “Come on, brother. You’re our good luck charm. It’s gonna be a Cup year for us because of you. We’ll work something out.” He knew better than to believe Jean-Paul and the team could just buy Aaron out from under Uncle Rick. Still, there had to be something they could do to at least let Aaron finish out the season.

Then there were paramedics and a gurney pushing through the crowd of upset hockey players. Aaron was lifted onto the gurney and strapped down. Bez growled, but it didn’t stop the female paramedic from injecting Aaron with a syringe full of something clear. Jeff numbly let her partner pry his fingers off Aaron’s good shoulder. Jean-Paul was speaking a continuous stream of French to David as El wrapped Brendan in a protective hug. Horne was pale and composed, acting like the Captain he was instead of his usual asshole self, calming down the others. It was Bez who produced a Sharpie, used for autographs, and shoved it in Jeff’s hand. “Your cell phone,” he said urgently. “He call us. Let us know is okay.”

Jeff popped the cap with a sudden burst of hope. He scrambled forward, ignoring the paramedics’ stares as he pushed up Aaron’s pant leg. Over the swell of the calf muscle, he wrote his cell phone number and ‘CALL US, 87’. So Aaron would know who’d left the message. He tugged the rough material back down over the numbers, smoothing it with his palm for luck.

“You done?” the male paramedic asked, bored. “Because we need to get this guy to a hospital before there’s nothing left to leak out.”

“Yeah,” Jeff said reluctantly, stepping away. “Take care of him, okay?”

The female paramedic rolled her eyes as her partner made agreeable noises. She draped a blanket over Aaron, pulling it up over his face in case any of the media was still lingering outside. It made him look like he was already dead as they wheeled him away.

Aaron woke up in the infirmary in Virginia. Peterson was by his head holding a medical basin. “Hey, soldier, you with me?” the trainer asked, smoothing down Aaron’s sweat-soaked hair when he saw the pale eyes flutter.

“Yeah,” Aaron rasped. His head was pounding and his throat felt like sandpaper. “Water?”

“Ice chips,” Peterson offered instead. “ You've been throwing up a lot.” He eased a hand behind Aaron and helped him sit up. “Seems the blood loss did a number on your immune system. You got sick on us.”

Light-headed enough to be nauseous, Aaron didn't protest Peterson spoon-feeding him ice chips. His inner-ear was trying to convince him he was floating several feet above the bed. There were restraints around his ankles. Peterson must have freed his arms. The sheets were clammy with sweat. Aaron lifted the top sheet, he was naked beneath it, and checked on his side. The wound had been closed into an ugly red line. There was a light crust on the seam from being re-opened to make sure the wound drained properly. He’d only been out for a couple of days, three at the most. His shoulder was still sore, more from lack of motion than being popped back into place.

The simple status check exhausted Aaron’s reserves. He turned his head away from the next offer of ice-chips and let himself slip back down onto the pillows. Peterson pulled the sheet up to Aaron’s chin after securing the wrist cuffs. “Get some sleep. Someone will be around if you need anything.” Aaron closed his eyes and relaxed, warm and comfortable as he slept off the last of the infection.

Once, when Jeff was young and the twins were just starting to talk, Mom had taken them to the Joint Personal Effects Depot at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. It had been an overnight trip, and Mom had worn her uniform the whole time. Black bags with white tags were stacked everywhere in the tan huts. Mom had gotten them fast food for lunch. She sat them out in the sunlight under a tree and told Jeff to feed his brothers.

Jeff had fed them scraps of chicken nugget while watching men and women in BDUs unloading trucks of black bags. There was something about the way they handled even the heaviest crate that told him these bags, which contained ordinary, everyday objects to be spread over tables and cataloged, were different. He’d asked Mom about it afterwards. She hadn't cried when she told him those bags contained the personal effects of soldiers killed in combat, but it was a close thing.

Two weeks with no word from Aaron and radio silence from Mom about the soldier, and Jeff called Uncle Rick. “I’m sorry, Jeffie,” Rick said softly. “I thought you realized. It’s not safe for Aaron to contact you. He has to vanish because of who he is. We have to be safe, for him. It would be best to let him go. Okay?”

Jeff had lied, knowing Uncle Rick knew he was lying. Rick let it go and left Jeff to make his choked off, hoarse phone calls to the others who would care. He wasn't sure who decided to hold something like a wake at Jeff’s apartment, but the Shues, Bez, Jean-Paul, David, Jim the trainer, Mitch Layten (Bez’s alternate), Coach, and surprisingly Christian Horne all came with food and beer like it was a wake. Maybe it was.

Coach didn't stay long. He just handed Jeff a Flyers’ equipment bag with 87 and Crosby stitched on the name patch and left. Jim was the first, borrowing Jeff’s maintenance kit and cleaning the skates he’d lent Aaron before putting them in the bottom of the bag like he was just storing them for the summer. Bez cleaned the pads he’d bought Aaron and put those in next. Brendan Shue slipped the new mouthguard he’d gotten to replace the one Aaron had bitten through, still in the package, into an outer pocket. El folded the 33 sweater and tucked it in next to the t-shirt and combat pants Jeff had found in his clean laundry. Mitch threw in the bag of pucks he and Aaron practiced with. Jean-Paul carefully untaped Aaron’s stick before zipping it in. Horne folded the Flyers 87 jersey and put it next to the one El had bought. Then, like he thought he might be able to hide it, he slipped a black and orange Underarmor shirt beneath it. The tag was still on.

David was last, hands steady as he refolded clothes neatly and added a package of athletic socks and a new helmet to replace the one Aaron had borrowed. Then he zipped the bag closed and held it out for Jeff. It reminded Jeff of that day at Aberdeen. He could almost taste the fillers in the hamburger as his fingers closed around the nylon handle. He never thought that he’d be the one getting a black bag. The white embroidery was a stark parallel to the name, rank, and serial number tags he remembered.

Jeff put the bag in the front hall closet near his own. He didn't know what else to do. Aaron would never be back for his bag, any more than if he’d actually died. But Jeff didn't want to get rid of it either. It would feel too much like Aaron was dead instead of just back in the shadows. As a compromise, he tucked it behind some junk he was too lazy to sort through. Out of sight, but still safe.

“The scar on Aaron’s back,” Bez said randomly. “He said eye-ee-dee. Killed many men, but not him.”

“He spoke Afghani or whatever the hell gibberish those guys talk in,” Mitch offered as he filled his plate with carrot sticks to offset the potato chips. “When we’d practice shoot-outs, he’d swear. It was kind of awesome.” Jeff was surprised Mitch had shown at all. The alternate goalie hadn't spent much time with Aaron off the ice. They had been dedicated after-practice shoot-out partners. Aaron had learned to score moving down the ice alone with only Mitch between the pipes separating him and a goal. In hindsight, it made sense Mitch would care enough to come.

Brendan was crying a little as he told them, “He said he’s a cheap drunk. That’s why he never had even one beer. It’s enough to get him drunk.”

Wrapping his brother in a hug, El added, “He doesn't like the taste either. Says it tasted like medicine.”

“He didn't know why I got him an AK-27 instead of some other stick,” Jean-Paul said, staring into his wine. “Not until I showed him Chara’s highlight reel. We talked about sticks for two hours straight. He didn't even know there were different kinds of sticks.” He was curled into David’s side which would have gotten him shit any other day.

David cleared his throat roughly, “He wanted to meet my boys. He hadn't been around children since he was a child himself.”

“He likes accents,” Jim mused, staring down into his Jack and coke. “In the locker room, he used to cock his head listening to all of you talk. Sometimes I’d hear him talking to himself, trying out what he’d heard.”

“I like him,” Horne said abruptly. “I would have liked to have him on my line sometime.” That was high praise from the defenseman.

Jeff cleared his throat and thought about how he and Aaron used to talk after lights out. They were the most honest when they couldn't see each others’ faces. “There was someone, for Aaron I mean. Another soldier, Jason. Aaron said that it wasn't a thing. I think it still is.”

There was a sad murmur, some startled. No one said anything. They all knew Aaron hadn't been completely normal. The fact he was gay didn't really stack up against the scars he’d had or the way he could fight. Jason would never know what happened to Aaron. Jeff didn't have enough details to find Aaron’s lover. “I need something stronger,” he grumbled, grabbing the bottle of vodka.

Bez produced shot glasses that Jeff didn't remember having. “Don’t touch glasses,” he ordered mysteriously as he poured. “Is bad luck at funeral.”

When they all had their shots in hand, they looked to Jeff, who braced himself and raised his glass. “To Aaron Crosby, the Flyers’ eighty-seven. We’ll be waiting, brother.” Then there was only silence as the others drained their shots. Jeff lingered over his own, letting the burn of the alcohol soothe the lump in his throat. He refused to look back at the closet where Aaron’s gear waited for ice time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Julorean found a continuity error (because she's awesome like that) which led to a partial re-write. Have patience while I finish untangling my mess. She's got me mostly straightened out, but I'm still adjusting my outline to make everything jive.
> 
> JPED is at Aberdeen. It's a voluntary position to work there. There's a couple good articles out there if you're curious about how they do what they do. Bez is voicing a real Russian superstition.
> 
> The title is from Shooting Star by Bad Company.


	37. Keep on Rockin' Me

The infection cleared up nicely, leaving Aaron tired but going strong. After a day’s solid rest to recuperate, he was up and moving again. Byer had left a new t-shirt in Aaron’s trunk. It was second hand with Led Zeppelin's logo on the front. Aaron pulled it on before wandering through the facility to Peterson and food. Both were in the small commissary area near the trainers’ wing.

Peterson had made eggs and ham along with an impressive stack of toast. Real food, instead of the nutrient-dense, pre-packaged mushes and bars heated in the microwave meant only good things. “Hey, kiddo,” Peterson said cautiously, testing out the affectionate nickname. Aaron let him have it. Peterson wasn't a bad sort. He was like some of the trainers and assistant coaches who Aaron had met with Jeff. A good man, but not a strong one. Essentially kind, but not willing to put himself at risk.

“Smells good,” Aaron said, pouring himself a tin mug of coffee.

“I’m glad. It’s for you, compliments of the Captain. She says thank you for taking care of her son,” Peterson smiled and handed Aaron a plate. “ I've got more good news. You’re going to Africa. They need a shooter on hand. Take your stuff, your MP3 player, your book. You’ll have access to electricity occasionally and plenty of down time.” He passed Aaron the blood kit. “Doc wants some samples from after fasting.”

Aaron filled the two tubes and dabbed superglue on the need puncture to close it more quickly. Then he tore into the food eagerly. “Sounds like fun. Who’s the target?”

“Warlord, usual list of crimes against humanity. Also made the mistake of double-crossing the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure. You’re the favor they called in. How’s your French?” Peterson asked.

Aaron snorted. “Quebecoise,” he mumbled around a mouthful of food. “But it’s not like I can pass as a local anyways.” He felt the hunger pangs that came with dosing with greens twist his stomach. Stuffing a square of buttery toast in his mouth eased the twinge.

“We’re also going to need to spend some teaching you how to manage your own program. You’re not going to have the level of oversight that you used to. We've started having assets dead-drop their sample kits.” Peterson shook his head at the rate Aaron was putting away food. “Anyways, new policy is you kids can handle your own programs. That’s your fault, by the way, you don’t even need spot-checking anymore to get your samples delivered and take your chems on time. Byer left some packets of technical information for you to supplement the standard lecture.”

Aaron sighed theatrically, but he was pleased. The fact he could read and use even extremely technical information gave him pleasure. “Homework. What can you do?” He mopped up the last of the eggs and grease from the ham with a piece of bread. “When do we start?”

“After drills,” Peterson said laughing. “Let’s see if hockey kept you fighting fit.”

(There will be a book, an insurance policy really, with the details of the next two years. NRAG kept very good records on all their agents. The anonymous author will have far too much insider information about an agent called Five to just be a simple hacker, even if she doesn't give his real name. She’ll write it when she’s backed in corner and a man she trusts told her to go loud and public if you don’t have any other choices. Luckily, the man himself will be long vanished into the another life by the time people read about his sins.)

Africa was beautiful and hot. Aaron loved it there. Despite his pale skin he fell in easily with civilian women, lifting their burdens and carrying water. He was good at averting the quick hands of children who tried to pick his pocket without hurting them. His cover was as a freelance photographer. No one looked too closely at him or the two boxes of ‘equipment’ in his backpack. He had two cameras of decent quality as well and did actually take pictures to load on his slim little laptop each night.

He also massacred enough rebels to make the news when the French finally figured out where their traitorous warlord was. It had been easiest just to set their camp on fire and pick off those who tried to flee. He didn't even regret it much. Their deaths would make the giggling, dark-eyed women he spent his days taking pictures of sleep easier.

He left in the middle of the night on a plane for the US with tired business men and cold-eyed mercenaries, staying on his native soil only long enough for a check-up before he was off again, still groggy from the drugs.

Then there was Pakistan and a shot Aaron didn’t like to think about. The young wife lived, but she would never forget the coat of blowback which covered her face and soaked her hijab. It was a political marriage. There was no love there yet, if ever, but Aaron had watched through the scope when she turned white and struggled to rip the fabric off herself before being stopped by her brother and father to preserve her modesty. He wasn't proud of that shot, clean and delicate as it had been. If he’d chosen his position better the blowback would have never touched the young woman.

He chose a headscarf as payment for services rendered after breaking the neck of a would-be rapist in Uzbekistan, then realized he had no way to mail it to the bride he’d widowed. A little girl on the street was crying in rural Belarus. The scarf quieted her long enough for Aaron to slip away from the body of her guardian, whose guts still steamed the air from Aaron’s vindictive knife strike.

It was twenty-five months before he set foot on US soil again long enough to stay the night. There was always another mess to clean up, another body to put in the ground. Aaron stayed on couches and floors of contacts or in anonymous hotel rooms when he wasn't sleeping on the ground beneath a dozen skies. Most of the contacts barely talked to him. Those that did engage were Aaron’s lifeline between Byer’s appearances to oversee operations and the doctor’s familiar smile when he flew back for physicals. His favorite was a tiny, Somali woman in Ethiopia who was old enough to be his grandmother several times over. She was a doctor, schooled in a America during the Cold War, who told him to call her Aasiya.

Aasiya told the people neighboring her tiny, tidy two room house Aaron was a nursing student doing humanitarian work. She taught Aaron how to vaccinate an infant, run an IV for an old woman, and how to talk to people until they were calm, even if you didn't speak the language. They were the primary skills required for working in the refugee camps that were her life. Aaron handed out drugs for AIDS and vaccines for measles. He soothed hungry babies who were nothing more than skin and bones in the crook of his arm. Aasiya told him he was naturally gentle with those in pain and need. She said it was because he’d suffered too, and the refugees knew a kindred soul.

She held Aaron when he had to leave her. Her thin, stringy strong arms pressed across his shoulders like ropes tethering him to the camp and her little white-washed house. He never wanted to go. The flash of her dark skin and eyes against the bright colors of her clothes had come to mean home like the faint echo of the Rasar’s soap in the halls of the Virginia facility. She smelled strongly of cumin and cardamom and the other spices she made their meals with and salt from the wet patch he left on her direh. For the rest of his life (at least his life as Aaron), baasto dishes were his comfort food of choice.

Then it was home again to Peterson, the doctor, and another round of vaccines to prepare for international work in Eastern Asia. Business as usual. 

Until Aaron had an allergic reaction to one of the vaccines. He didn't remember the next week or the one after that as he went down hard with a fever that made the infected scalpel wound look like the common cold.

It came in the night while Aaron packed his bag and recharged his MP3 player and laptop. One minute he was folding fresh socks into his duffle. The next, he was on the floor sweating as the walls seemed to bend in on him. Aaron closed his eyes as the room’s lights went dim even though the bulbs burned brightly. He felt cold now, which was strange. Not a moment ago he’d been tempted to tell Peterson to turn the heat down. Unconsciousness snuck up on him. So it never even occurred to try and cry out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, time skip! Betaed by the lovely Julorean (who is pretty much flat amazing at helping you get yourself unfucked).
> 
> Baasto is a pasta dish whose variations make up a chunk of Somalian cuisine. It's pretty tasty in all forms. Somalia is still a pretty messed up place. A lot of refugees end up in Ethiopia. See the UNHCR profile for Ethiopia for details.
> 
> Title from the Steve Miller Band song Rock'n' Me.


	38. Fire in my Eyes

“The fever’s getting worse,” Peterson reported to Byer and Mandy via a secure line. He rubbed his hand across his eyes. “He was lucid briefly today. Then it was back to shaking and comatose. He didn’t remember yesterday at all, couldn’t even stay awake to ask for anything more than ice chips.”

The first day of the fever, Aaron had asked for Jeff and Jason and other names Peterson didn’t recognize. The second, he’d wanted the Colonel. Byer was in Washington for some very sensitive meetings. So Peterson had hedged until Aaron slept again.

“I’ve got one more meeting with some of the Joint Chiefs,” Byer sighed. “Then I’ll head for the facility. If he wakes up again, tell him. How’s the fever spike?”

Peterson glanced down at the read-outs from the nurse. “It comes and goes. According to Doctor Shearing, it’s kind of like updating a computer. His body is cycling, adjusting slightly, and re-booting. There’s still a risk of it frying his head if it holds. We’ve been pushing the chems through an IV. He’s having a lot of problems with nausea. Considering how out of it he is, we’re giving him just enough neuro-effectives to keep him from going into withdrawal rather than his usual dose.”

Byer grimaced but nodded. “That’s fine. Update me immediately if anything changes.” He hung up before Peterson could acknowledge.

“Aaron is much hardier than Outcome Eight was,” Mandy said quietly. She didn’t look up from her laptop, though one hand settled over Byer’s to steady the shaking. “You should leave now. Turso and I can handle the admiralty. Five will recover faster if you’re there to hold his hand.”

“The fever fluctuations were only this bad in Eight,” Byer replied absently. “The others were up and moving within forty-eight hours.”

“Eight was also dead within twelve hours of receiving the live virus,” Mandy reminded him. “Five is just having a mild reaction to the preservatives used in the suspension. We knew it was going to be hard on his system, but it’s much easier to explain the fever this way.” She saved and closed her notes. “You aren’t going to be content until you see him. So go. Work remotely. The Virginia facility has a secure T1 line.”

“Don’t let them give you any shit,” Byer ordered, gathering his things. “If they do, feel free to sic Turso on them.”

Mandy rolled her eyes fondly. “You better write up the commentary on the Syria situation, sir. I can stall if we have something to stall for.” The friendly threat made Byer smile. “I expect expensive coffee for this.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Captain,” Byer promised as he slung his bag over his shoulder. “See you on Saturday.” He gave her a half-salute, which she returned.

Aaron was seizing. This was the second fever seizure in thirty-six hours. Febrile seizures were associated with very young children, but Dr. Shearing couldn’t find another explanation. Byer set his laptop out of harm’s way and yelled for the nurse. Together they loosened Aaron’s restraints for enough give to get the asset into the recovery position. Saliva foamed from between Aaron’s lips onto the surgically white sheets as he jerked. Byer grabbed a damp rag out of the bowl of clean ones an aide kept stocked to wipe the mess away.

“Get the doctor,” he ordered when Aaron went limp. “Febrile seizures shouldn’t be so close together.” The cuffs of his sleeves were rolled up to just beneath his elbows. Sweat stains darkened every fold. Byer had turned up the room’s temperature uncomfortably warm when Dr. Shearing had removed Aaron’s sheet. With the risk of seizures, the sheet was too much of a hazard. Despite stripping down to his lightest cotton shirt on site, Byer was sweating through his clothes. Aaron’s teeth chattered from the medical bed.

Byer leaned against the side of the bed and brushed his fingers through Aaron’s hair. “Take it easy, soldier,” he said evenly. “Help’s coming.” The seizures were frightening, ugly things. Aaron’s limbs slammed against the extents of the restraints and his jaw lolled like he was dying. In the aftermath, Aaron was just lucid enough to be scared. The lines of his ribs flexed beneath his skin as he heaved in panicked breaths. Byer helplessly stroked the line of Aaron’s cheek with his thumb. The fever was killing Aaron by inches. The intervals between the temperature spikes weren’t enough for Aaron to recover, just regain awareness.

Dr. Shearing had gone home for the moment to get some sleep. Instead, an Indian man hurried through the door with the nurse, carrying a lumbar puncture kit. Aaron made a distressed sound, weak and wordless. “I’m very sorry,” the doctor said sincerely, checking Aaron’s IV line while the nurse prepped the area where the needle was going with iodine swabs and injected local anesthetic. “There is a chance the sickness moved into your nervous system. We need to be sure.” He didn’t touch Aaron, except with gloves on to hold the skin taut while he pushed the needle into Aaron’s spine. Byer held Aaron’s face between his hands, locking the pales eyes with his.

Aaron fell asleep during the procedure. Exhaustion got the better of his anxiety, helped along by Byer gently tapping Aaron’s cheek. “Let me know the results immediately,” Byer said, eyes still on Aaron’s face. There wasn’t much fight left in the man. It sat like something rotting on the back of Byer’s tongue. The doctors couldn’t find a problem. So there wasn’t a solution. Useless, Byer was forced to pet Aaron’s hair and watch his best agent unravel around the edges. The virus Byer had ordered be given to him was eating Aaron away as he watched.

Less than an hour later, the fever spiked again. Aaron’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. The nurse, a different one now, woke Byer with a hard shake. She was a broad-shoulder, hatchet-faced ex-Army nurse. So there was no panic in her eyes as she said, “Colonel, I called the doctor, but I need help now. We’ve got to get your boy into the tub and get this fever down.”

Byer staggered to his feet, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Where do you need me?”

“I need you to keep him calm. This is going to hurt,” she warned, freeing Aaron’s limbs and rolling him onto a gurney. “We’re going to stick him in cool water. It’s not going to feel good.” She deftly kicked the breaks off the gurney and rolled Aaron to the full bathroom attached to the medical room. Aaron muttered, so Byer quickly pressed a hand to Aaron’s shoulder to keep him still.

The tub was old, stainless steel and already full of translucent hard water. A rubber ledge was attached to the side so a patient could be eased in. The nurse cranked down the gurney’s height. “We’re going to lift him in now,” the nurse said firmly. She and Byer managed to ease Aaron into the water. It took a moment for the change in environment to register with Aaron. When it did, Byer dove into the tub to keep his agent in the water. “Aaron!”

The nurse plunged her arms into the water at the foot of the tub. Her hands forced their way behind Aaron’s knees, pressing in and out on the joint. Aaron settled almost immediately. She wasn’t sure why until she saw the way the young man had pressed his face into the Colonel’s throat. The Colonel, shirt soaked through to reveal lean muscles in his back, had a hand tucked delicately around the back of Aaron’s skull, murmuring reassurances with militaristic words.

“He’s settled,” the Colonel said with confidence. “You don’t have to hold him down.” With a splash, the officer extracted himself, keeping one hand on Aaron’s chest. “I’ve got him.” There wasn’t enough force behind the hold to dent skin. Aaron was letting himself be held even though the temperature of the water was making his teeth chatter.

“I’ll get you a towel and scrubs then,” she said, pulling her arms out of the water and holding them away from her body to keep from dripping on her pants. “I’m also going to get him a mild paralytic to stop the shivering.” She left for the locker room to get fresh scrubs, confident that her patient was in good hands.

The fever finally broke at 0241, the darkest part of morning. Byer helped the nurse sponge Aaron down and change the sheets. Aaron was long gone into the real sleep of recovery, his mind shutting down to let his body rest. Clean, dry, and with fresh bedding, he dozed comfortably. Then Byer was finally able to sleep. On a bare cot in one of the empty bunk rooms, Byer lay on his back and closed his eyes. The tension headache behind his left eye still throbbed in the dark, but Aaron was alive. The relief was enough to send Byer into a deep, dreamless sleep until Mandy shook him awake.

“Ward Abott thinks he’s found Jason Bourne,” Mandy said, pinched around the eyes. “I brought you clothes and toiletries. Shave. You need it.”

“Who won the second play-off round?” Byer asked sitting up and peeling off his scrub shirt.

Mandy smiled slightly, “Flyers. Next game is on Thursday against the Kings. Jeff swears that it isn’t going to be a repeat of the debacle from two years ago. Up now, sir.” Two years ago, the Flyers’ star players had been shaky after losing their good luck charm. They hadn't even made the playoffs last year. She tugged him to his feet and loosened the drawstring holding his pants up with a hard yank. He skinned them off his hips as he stepped into the next room where Mandy had already started the shower. A light steam floated through the air. Shampoo, soap, and scrubbing rags sat in a plastic caddy on the floor, just outside the spray. A razor and can of shaving cream was on the ledge by the sink.

“Game highlights,” he called to Mandy as she shook out the clothes she’d brought for him. She obediently filled him in on Jeff’s assists and one attempted goal as he showered. The clothes she’d packed were more formal than he usually bothered to be. He pulled on the fine wool suit pants over silk boxers. Mandy cleaned up the patches of bristles Byer had missed with another razor and a damp cloth before letting him put on his undershirt and oxford. She dropped a dark jacket over his shoulder.

“We’ve got a meeting in DC,” she said, holding out his laptop bag. “Let’s see what wild geese the CIA found now. Have Aaron shipped to the cabin when he’s stable. I’ll stay with him during recovery. I need the time to review the initial LARX results anyways.”

Mandy pursed her lips, but nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The fever had burned through the little weight the missions had left on Aaron’s body, leaving him kitten weak and constantly cold. The muscle and bone that remained offered little help retaining warmth. It was early summer in the mountains. The air was just starting to warm and the sun shown down until after eight in the evening. Aaron walked the trails during the day while Byer worked. He’d been kitted out with a nice pair of hiking boots, lined pants, and a water bottle with a strap to supplement his usual off-duty clothes. The long hikes gave him time to get his wind back. The small scar on his hip where his new radio tracker had been implanted itched like crazy. The doctor said it was psychosomatic and would stop on its own.

Still, it was nice. Byer cooked enough to feed several people each night. Aaron, surprising himself, ate all of the extra. This pleased Byer who said it meant Aaron’s body was recovering well. Sleeping was even easier in the natural quiet, even when the fever dreams came back as nightmares. Byer had Aaron move one of the recliners upstairs to Aaron’s bedroom. He slept on the chair, so Aaron could see him safe and sound when he woke up shaking.

The days up in the mountains ran together quickly, punctuated by drives to town to meet a Chinese man who told Aaron to call him ‘Cat’. Cat would beat on Aaron in an empty warehouse owned by NRAG until Aaron’s reflexes came back. Byer cleaned Aaron up after the bouts with a small smile as the cuts and bruises decreased. Aaron was able to start climbing again, scaling rocks and cliffs until his shoulders ached. When he could hike the trails, he started running them. Sometimes Byer joined him. Unlike Peterson, Byer could keep up for hours at a time.

The day Aaron managed to get from the cabin to town and back before dark, without ever being on the road, Byer told him vacation was over. They drove back towards the Virginia facility, stopping by a medical lab where Aaron’s doctor was waiting. She smiled warmly at him before putting him under. He woke up on a plane to Vientiane with his Brian Gamble passport in his bag and a vague recollection he was supposed to meet Byer at a tourist hotel near the Cambodian border in two weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the last of the unfucking done, reviewed, and smoothed out a bit. Much thanks to Julorean for putting up with me and betaing this piece.
> 
> Aaron left the Flyers during the beginning of the playoffs. They lost and dropped out after he left. They didn't make the playoffs last year, and now they're in the playoffs again. Approximately two years have passed since Jeff has seen Aaron.
> 
> Also, I'm aware dunking someone with a fever into a cold tub of water isn't standard practice anymore. But Aaron's kind of a special case in that physically cooling him might actually help stabilize the changes going on in his body. (Or so claims my sister, who engineers squishy bits.)
> 
> Title from Fever by Judas Priest.


	39. The World's Your Oyster

Laos was hot and steamy. Aaron downed water by the liter and rarely pissed. The locals spoke a mishmash of tonal languages Aaron couldn’t quite replicate. Instead, he stuck to French, flavoring it Quebecois, and lifted a Canadian passport from some drunken college students. He stripped it down in his hotel room, slipping in the Brian Gamble information and photo. It wouldn’t get him to Canada or the US, but it would get him around Laos.

Brian Aaron Gamble (call me Aaron, my uncle’s Brian) from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He’d grown up down the street from El and Brendan Shue, famous hockey players in the NHL. It was all very blandly exciting. Aaron liked the anonymity, the extra layer of security, in passing as a different nationality. He used Brendan’s accent when speaking to other tourists, working his way south towards the poppy fields and illegal arms trade.

He fell in with a group of Australian families on vacation while leaving Vientiane. The children were older, all legal to drink. Aaron got into good graces of the matriarch of the group, a spry grandmother with silvery hair pulled up in a ponytail, when he retrieved her grandson’s wallet from an opportunistic pickpocket in the tourist district. 

They were actually one family. Chloe was the grandmother. Her husband had passed years ago. She was on vacation with her two daughters and their husbands and children. Aaron offered her some of his travelling money in trade for eating and staying with them. Chloe was charmed by the ‘young Canadian bloke, nice arse’ and happily agreed. She bunked him with the children. Two girls – women, really - twenty and twenty-five respectively and three boys between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five split between two rooms.

The two oldest children were Chloe’s granddaughter and the girl’s boyfriend. They latched onto Aaron, gossiping about home and the other people they’d met on the trip. Bruce, save the jokes, was a law student who’d just graduated. His girlfriend of five years, Suzy, was an environmental engineer. Aaron told them he was in sports medicine, specifically as support staff for a Tier II hockey team. After the first night of cramming four men in one room, they divided the rooms by age. The younger woman shared with her little brother and older brother. The couple and Aaron took the other room.

Bruce and Suzy were both black Irish with hazel eyes that had some mistaking them for siblings. They were also loud, vivacious, and absolutely enchanting for how normal they were. Aaron had two weeks to get to Pakse, on the southern Laotian border with Cambodia. He spent twelve days of his grace period, supposedly meant to help him blend in as a tourist actually on a vacation, just to be with them.

Aaron kissed Suzy first, or she kissed him. They were at a bar away from the rest of the family. Suzy needed a break from her mother and cousins. So Bruce had taken her and Aaron out for beers and local cuisine. They were eating sin dat and drinking Thai beer while Aaron told them about the time Christian Horne, though he just called him Chris, nearly got his ass kicked in a bar. Bruce was laughing so hard that beer was trickling out of his nose. Aaron tried to swipe it off with a napkin.

Suzy caught his hand, reeled him in, and kissed him. Aaron just stared at her mouth agape. “That’s okay, right, darl?” she asked in that thick way which made her sound like she was speaking another language entirely.

“Yeah,” Aaron breathed, wide-eyed. “It’s fine.”

“What about me, mate?” Bruce asked, leaning forward. His breath smelled like Thai lager and barbeque. Aaron just nodded. The couple laughed at Aaron, not cruelly. “You’re a good kisser,” Bruce said, gently rubbing Aaron’s shoulder.

“And sweet,” Suzy added. She smiled reassuringly at Aaron. “We like you a lot actually. Would you be willing to travel with us and have some fun for awhile?”

Aaron wet his dry throat with a long draw of his beer. He wasn’t as naive as he used to be. There hadn’t been anyone after Jason, but a subtle suggestion of sex and a flirty smile could smooth over a lot of problems. Occasionally, Aaron had even been propositioned. He’d just never been interested in fucking a stranger. Bruce and Suzy weren’t really strangers though. They were his friends.

He drained his bottle and gave them a real, shaky, little smile. “I’m... Yeah. I’d like to. I’ve just never really done this before.”

“Like, sex?” Bruce asked incredulously. “With how often women try to get a hand down your pants?”

Aaron shrugged. “I had a... boyfriend I guess you’d say. I just never really met anyone I wanted to do that with other than him.”

Suzy shoved Bruce roughly. “Belt it, you bastard. I think it’s cute.” She grinned at Aaron. “I’d be honored if you joined us for the week and happy to show you the ropes.”

It was a good week. They thought he was normal. He was with them. Just a guy on vacation cutting loose with two beautiful people who wanted the same thing. This was what no strings meant, Aaron learned. It was fun, gentle, and full of smiles in the dark, feeling good and nothing more. Less than Jason, missing the absolute trust, but still wonderful.

Aaron arrived on the border in a good mood. The scratches Suzy left on his shoulders from her good-bye still stung a little, and Bruce had been equally enthusiastic. The sharp throb of loss he’d been braced for never happened. The clean parting was the most pleasant surprise Aaron had had since meeting them. They’d been sorry to see him go - Chloe, Bruce, Suzy and everyone else - but they hadn’t been clingy. No cell phone numbers had been exchanged. There was no demand for digital information. Aaron wondered if they had realized more than they let on.

Dom Kralor was little more than a shack with piece of wood striped with reflective tape gating the road. It was the ground route between Cambodia and Laos mostly used by internationals. The locals just crossed in the jungle surround the rural border crossing. Aaron would be following the locals when the time came. Jungle work came easily to him. He’d run the trails at night, under cover of darkness. He wouldn’t even need to worry about batteries for night vision goggles thanks to the chems.

Aaron looked down at the armed guards and the shack further up the road on the Laotian side that was the actual checkpoint office. It wasn’t in much better shape than the border crossing itself. There was small market set up near the checkpoint, little more than some tables and chairs with flimsy sunshades. Aaron pointed his bike north, towards the nearest town. Byer would be waiting.

Byer was wearing a loose, light linen shirt and aviators in front of a tourist hotel near the border. It wasn’t a widely traveled area, so the hotel was little better than a local bed and breakfast attempting to be cleaner and more western than others in the area. Still, Byer had a glass of coffee, pale from the condensed milk, and a French paper in his hand. Aaron parked the bike in front of the hotel, putting on the disk lock Suzy had gotten him as a good-bye present. His brain bucket, Bruce’s gift, was stuck to his head with sweat. He left it on the handle bar and collapsed onto the shaded chair across from Byer. “Sir.”

“Enjoy your vacation, Aaron?” Byer said without looking up from his paper.

“Yes, sir,” Aaron said with a small smile. “Made some new friends.”

Byer did look up at that. “You used protection, I hope?”

“Yes, sir. Also left a note with my samples to test for STDs,” Aaron glanced hopefully at the picked at plate of food on the table between them. Byer nodded at it. Aaron dove in.

Folding his paper, Byer probed gently, “Did you have fun?”

Aaron nodded, mouth full of food. “Yeah. They were nice. A long standing couple, Australian.” He said it easily, relaxing back to lick his fingers clean. “I’m running under a Canadian passport right now. I’ve got a legit tourist visa for it. Good to the end of the month.”

“Clever,” Byer said approvingly. “I like the accent by the way. It’s impeccable.” Putting the paper to the side, he pushed his sunglasses up. “We’ve got a room for the night. You start recon tomorrow. I’m coordinating with the locals the CIA has embedded. Keep a low profile though. I don’t want them knowing about you. You’re our ace in the hole.”

“Should we be meeting like this then?” Aaron inquired, wiping his mouth.

Byer smirked. “You’re Canadian, Aaron. What nefarious things could we be up to since you obviously can’t be an American agent? Thank you for that, by the way. This’ll make things much easier to conceal.” Aaron rolled his shoulders, ducking his head to hide his blush. Byer caught him under the chin gently, tipping his face up. “It’s a good cover, and you made it possible. Good job, soldier.”

Aaron relaxed, nodding. “Do you have the maps?”

Byer nodded as he slid the small black bag under the table towards Aaron with his foot. “The foliage coverage makes satellites pretty much useless. I’ve got no guarantee those maps are any good. Hell, some of them date back to Vietnam. You’re going to have to fill in the details yourself.”

Aaron lifted the bag into his lap, unzipping it and fingering the contents. The maps were helpfully laminated with a pack of lumocolor markers underneath. A hard case contained a StarkOptics rifle scope for doing rough distance measurements. “And the rest?”

“Dead drop on the map.” Byer leaned back sipped at his coffee. “Our person of interest is Tou Xiong. He’s Hmong. You’ve probably noticed some tension there between general population and the Hmong. There’s deep set racism in the history here with an added complexity from a series of Vietnam era cluterfucks and the usual Communist reconstruction human rights violations. So let’s be discrete. Right now, Xiong is the main pipeline for weapons into and opium out of the country in this area. He’s got some ties to the CIA. He’s second generation from a CIA soldier from the original Hmong resistance.” Aaron nodded to indicate he understood what Byer wasn’t saying. The Hmong had formed the backbone of the CIA’s secret army in Laos during Vietnam. When the United States withdrew, they had been mostly abandoned. The political ramifications still echoed through country and culture.

“Xiong is a paranoid fuck. He sticks to the jungles, switches out his routes, and hides with the locals. We know he’s personally going to do a handoff across the border in two weeks. You’re going to follow him, intercept him, and terminate him before he can do the handoff. It’s drugs, opium in some form. Burn it and any weapons you find. I’m here to coordinate only. You’re planning and carrying through independently. This is a three prong operation. I put you on this because Xiong’s death is what seals the deal. I need it done perfectly.” Byer stacked the empty dishes while holding Aaron’s gaze.

Aaron wiped his mouth on the hem of his t-shirt. “I won’t fail you, sir. We sharing?”

Byer considered, looking around at the locals watching them. “Yes. You can start fresh in the morning. Frankly, a shower would be an improvement. I can smell you from over here.” Aaron just laughed.

The hotel’s plumbing wasn’t great. The water was lukewarm but still cooler than the air. Aaron stood under the spray until he was cool enough the water could actually wash away the sweat away without more immediately replacing it. It was a disappointment to flop naked on the bed beneath the straining, whining fan that cooled the room just to start sweating again.

Byer, settled at the desk working on his laptop, shook his head. “You’re not going to stop sweating until you get out of this damn country, soldier.”

“I can try,” Aaron muttered, remembering his time in Africa. Somehow, the sweating there had felt cleaner, less like steeping in his own juices. He toweled off the sheen of sweat that risen over his body before pulling back on his pants and curling up on the sheets. His morning would start before sunrise, and sleep would be thin until the mission was over.

Xiong was a slippery bastard. It had taken Byer the better part of three years to push him into severing enough ties within the American intelligence community to make removal an option. The Chinese held no love for the Hmong or their former political leanings, but Xiong, pragmatic as he was, had managed to forge a relationship based on the exchange of American technological designs for the use of Chinese shell companies.

There were three pieces to Byer’s plan for re-establishing less mercenary control of the black market in the region. The CIA had been nurse-maiding a potential replacement from a clan with ancient history against Xiong’s own clan. Byer had feelers inside the handler’s team to make sure the boy’s rise to power was going smoothly. At the same time, the last two of the Treadstone assets Mandy was able to salvage were running interference with the CIA’s spying on NRAG, beating bushes and making noise on the other side of the country. Far away from the clusterfuck the CIA was making of Bourne’s retirement. They were also collecting information on the drug routes in the area. Byer hated wasting resources solely to manage idiot spooks who couldn’t figure out how to spy on their own side.

Aaron was sleeping through the clacking of the keyboard as he tapped out his opinions on the LARX report from Vendel. Byer didn’t bother couching his concerns about the lack of functional empathy towards the trainers in polite terms. Sociopaths were not reliable assets. The narcissism inherent in the condition precluded the acts of personal sacrifice that an Outcome agent could justify to himself.

At a point, duty necessitated doing inhuman things. It was the origin of programs like Treadstone, Outcome, and now LARX. Byer could appreciate how reducing empathy would make the men and women who did the deed more effective, but there had to be enough left to believe in something. Aaron believed in Byer, preferring people to the program. Outcome Four considered herself a patriot. Outcome One wanted to hurt the people who killed his mother. Vendel had to establish what drove a LARX asset before Byer would drink the kool-aid on the new conditioning. He sent his comments to Mandy for her to more tactfully (or not) pass on to the academics.

Then he slipped to the bathroom for his own shower, turning out the lights once he finished. There was only one bed, and Byer hadn’t been able to sleep in a chair comfortably since Mandy could stand straight without wincing. Dressed in sweats and a battered AFA t-shirt, Byer considered how best to wake his agent. A tentative shake had Aaron sighing, blinking sleepily, and muttering, “Where’s Suze, Bruce?” rather than snapping straight to violence.

“Aaron,” Byer said quietly. He couldn’t stop the tired amusement in his voice. “There’s only one bed.”

“Oh shit.” Aaron snapped fully awake. “Sorry, sir. I’ll take the floor.” He flushed a dull red in the half-light from the windows. The sheets rustled as he started to extract himself.

Byer gestured at him to stop. “You slept with other people recently?”

“Every night for ten days,” Aaron replied promptly. He shifted uncomfortably as he waited to be told their sleeping arrangements.

“Good enough,” Byer replied, sliding under the sheet next to Aaron. “If you break my neck, Captain Mandy will kill you.” Aaron shuddered, appropriately terrified on the threat the woman presented. Byer hid his smile in the dark as he folded one of the thin pillows double to support his head.

He woke early enough that he didn’t want to go for a run. Aaron was slipping out the door with his backpack and motorcycle helmet. Rolling over to bury his face in Aaron’s pillow, Byer closed his eyes and slipped back to sleep before he could remember the protective hand sweeping over his hair to soothe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think this continuity makes sense, thank Julorean for setting me right ways up. If you don't, then blame me. It's my story, and I don't always listen to her. ;)
> 
> Chloe's assessment of Aaron is, word for word, how a engineer I worked with was once describe is an older Australian woman on site.
> 
> So, opium, Laos, and the CIA all meet up during the Vietnam-era. In a (very small) nutshell, the CIA was allegedly helping the Hmong sell heroin to fund the Hmong's war against the communist government. The allegedly is here because some people still refute that. Personally, I recommend "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" if you're curious.
> 
> I'm indirectly referencing some real life people by making Tou Xiong Hmong. As an ethnic group, their situation is very sad and politically complex. This story reflects little of their reality. "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" is book about the interaction between the Hmong and American cultures and is very informative.
> 
> Chapter title from One Night in Bangkok.


	40. I Spoke Not a Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is ugly, dark, and violent. Consider yourself warned.

Aaron hadn’t heard the Rasar’s voice in a very long time, but it was the only thing louder than the sounds of human suffering ringing in his ears. “There is always someone /better/, Aaron. Never believe you are the best or can magically subvert luck. That way lies an ignoble death from your own pride, if you’re lucky. More often than not, someone else will pay for your swelled head.” She’d always end with something in Hebrew. It had a rhythm to it like a phrase often said. He’d never gotten the translation.

He hissed, silently it seemed, as the jagged edge of a large piece of shrapnel cut deeply into his hand. Behind him, the heat from the gas fire rippled across his back painfully. He’d been forced to give up on the bodies trapped in the burning hulk of the truck. The shreds of the door which had sliced his palm open had landed on a little girl. He managed to get a better grip through the slick of blood and heave the metal wreckage off of her.

IED. Improvised explosive device. Aaron was good with them. The Rasar had forced him to learn how to use the thing that killed him. He’d realized he had a knack for making things go boom in the most destructive way possible. Then he started to enjoy the challenge of turning a bundle of wires and chemicals into carefully gauged destruction.

It was a skill well-suited to the parameters of this mission. Xiong was smart enough to rotate his routes across the Cambodian border, but not smart enough that Byer didn’t catch a whisper in the breeze. Aaron had followed that whisper through the jungle where his boots squished into deep, sticky, rotting loam with every step to the frantic streets of the Cambodian border town where Xiong would transfer the drugs to river boats for less conspicuous transportation to a distribution center elsewhere. Thailand used to be the destination of choice, but the government crackdown there made it safer to transport large quantities of heroin out of Southeast Asia by new routes through Vietnam and Cambodia.

Aaron had stalked the jungle until he found the overland trails Xiong preferred, tracking tire prints and following the field laborers from behind the trees. He took his observations back to Byer, who compiled the information with his other sources. Slowly, a picture started to form, details verified by Aaron’s scouting. Byer wove the net around Xiong carefully and quietly, pulling it tight by inches. Until one of Xiong’s bodyguards bragged a little too loud at a bar.

Plied by one of Byer’s local sources with lao-lao (rice whisky) the man had spilled details about the shipment Xiong was personally escorting. Including an exact date. Byer passed the information onto Aaron with a wicked smile and orders to formulate a plan of attack.

Aaron had decided to take a page out of the Afghani’s book. Xiong was heading out with what was basically a convoy. The Taliban was very good at disrupting and destroying those, and they’d been Aaron’s first teachers. He’d built the IED in three pieces on the floor of Byer’s hotel room, filling the fragile shrapnel container with curling scraps of steel meant to gut a large vehicle. Long coils of coated copper wire were knotted neatly in his pack. Then, he’d laid in wait on the shacks where the initial processing of the opium was done. Aaron had spent days of his reconnaissance watching local laborers of all ages and genders wield the curved knives used to slash the green poppy buds and let the white sap age in the air until it turned dark. Then they gathered the sticky brown goo into balls wrapped in leaves. At the end of the day, it was taken to the shacks for processing into bricks to be transported. The chemists in the shacks mixed, boiled, scraped, and mixed again until the sap could be formed into crusty brown bricks of morphine base. When the wind blew in the right direction, Aaron could smell the lime and ammonia used in the processing.

It would have been preferable to use a sniper rifle. The heavy foliage interrupted by poppy fields was an ideal environ to make a shot from. Except Xiong knew that too. In the entire time Aaron had scouted, Xiong had never revealed himself long enough on site for Aaron to get a bead, let alone take a shot. There was a rough ridge of chafing on Aaron’s brow from the scope of his Bucky, a remnant of the times Aaron had tried.

So Aaron, adrenaline pumping through his system in anticipation, waited until Xiong rolled out in an armored Jeep followed by two trucks containing pallets of drugs. The trucks and jeep looked like they might date back to Vietnam. He wondered if they were the same vehicles the CIA had given Xiong’s predecessors to transport the heroin used to fund the guerrilla resistance against the Communist regime.

It was a long run to cut off the convoy. He’d laid out the shortcut early on, clearing out the worst of the underbrush and branches at face level. The route was rough, but Aaron enjoyed traversing it. Sometimes, when it hadn’t been urgent, he had travelled it via the trees with a smile for wherever Jason was. As it was, the trucks weren’t even audible in the distance when he came to the place he’d chosen for his ambush.

The rutted trail ran between the trunk of a huge tree and the steep slope of a hill. The IED was concealed in a pothole in the middle of this pinch point. He covered it with loam, shallowly burying the wires after rolling them out to his hiding place. For the sake of reliability and access to supplies, he’d eschewed radio components for a hardwired circuit. Then he camouflaged himself and settled in to wait.

Half-buried in rotting leaves, Aaron waited behind the crest of a small mound a respectable three hundred feet away. He knew what he’d built out of a mix of plastic explosives available on the local black market and things he’d dug out of the dumpster behind the shop of a man selling radios, supplemented with specific items from Byer. When it went off, he didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

The harsh, coughing rumble of the jeep as it passed was the signal for him to tap together the bare ends of the two wires. Then he kept his face down in the dirt and breathed deeply through the boom and scream of fragmented steel as it ripped through the vehicles. He didn’t think about Afghanistan. Instead, he remembered waking up next Byer. The officer ran hot. Aaron had pressed his face guiltily into the slope of Byer’s shoulder before he’d gotten up that last night in the hotel. Byer had smelled very faintly of sweated off cologne and warm, human sleep. The mix had permeated Aaron’s sleep clothes and made him want to curl up against Byer’s back and never move again. Byer had caught him cuddling. He’d just laughed and ran his fingers through Aaron’s hair until the alarm went off, allowing Aaron to lay on his chest and listen to the slow, steady thump of his runner’s heart.

The ghost memory of Byer’s worn, cotton sleep shirt brushing against his cheek kept Aaron from spiraling into a flashback as the wreckage settled. Instead, he cradled the AK-47 he’d stolen to his chest as he walked to the warzone he’d created. It was a reliable jungle gun, anonymous if not accurate. His Bucky was strapped at an angle across his pack with the scope tucked safely away in its padded case. A backup plan never hurt, and Aaron hated leaving it behind.

The blast had temporarily dulled Aaron’s hearing. So the variation in the screams didn’t resolve until he was almost on top of the first woman. He stared down at where she spurted blood from crack in her rib cage that exposed the tatters of a lung struggled against the air pressure. A bullet ended her suffering but Aaron didn’t dare look up. The trucks had been covered, already packed and ready to roll by the time Xiong joined them. It never occurred to him their cargo might be something other than the bricks of heroin scattered over the road like broken pottery. Byer had specifically said two trucks of drugs, not one and a truck of laborers.

Some of the less injured were already fleeing into the jungle, crying and calling out in their bird-like language. Aaron let them go, walking over to what was left of the jeep. Two of Xiong’s bodyguards were splattered across the front seat. The man himself was missing. There was a blood trail. Xiong was injured. Aaron should have gone after him. Even though Xiong was a native of this jungle, he wouldn’t be able to hide a trail this fresh from Aaron.

Except there were at least a dozen civilians scattered around the badly damaged hulks of the two trucks. Some were even alive. Aaron shouldered off his pack and set his AK to the side. Then he pulled the Bucky out of its sheath and smoothly shot the remaining armed guard. He freed the remaining laborers. The victims who couldn’t run, his victims, were dying painfully by inches. He knew about shrapnel wounds and massive blood loss. Those that would live were in too much pain to notice him. He pulled his knife to perform a coup de grace for those who wouldn’t last until help could find them. A knife was quiet. The dying didn’t need the fear a series of gunshots would cause.

Aaron tried not to think about what he was doing as he slammed his thinnest blade up into the join between the spine and skull, twisting up to destroy the brain like he was back in high school, pithing frogs. He started with the men. He’d been killing men on orders since he was a teenager. Outcome had ingrained it as second nature. It came easily even if it was distasteful.

The women were different. Aaron had only ever killed two women before. Both had been armed security professionals, no different than the men they worked with. This was sickening. He tried not to look at their faces as he killed them quickly.

The little girl, the only child, was mostly gone even before he killed her. Her torso was crushed, and the dark eyes watching him blinked more out of lingering reflex than awareness. Still, he left her for last in the vain hope she might regain some sort of awareness, and he’d have an excuse not to go through with the blow. She didn’t even twitch as she died. Too far gone for what was left of her nervous system to notice.

He wiped her blood and his from the cut on his hand down the front of his shirt and then laid down next to her, curling an arm around her body. The bones of her spine were tangibly fragmented beneath the thin cloth of her sundress. The moans and cries continued as dark fell, tapering off one by one with shock and sometimes death. Aaron lay next to his littlest victim and stared up at the canopy. She was already cool to the touch from being in shock. He bundled her against his chest even though it wouldn’t help.

He didn’t think. He couldn’t think. If he did, he’d never stop and everything would fall apart.

The chatter of native voices calling names through the trees forced him back on his feet. He shouldered his pack, leaving the AK in favor of cradling the Bucky to his chest. Aaron didn’t even know what he was going to say to his commanding officer. He expected a bullet to the back of the head wasn’t out of the question for an experiment gone wrong. It wasn’t a thought he minded. There were worse fates. Turning towards the blood trail from the night before, Aaron followed Xiong into the jungle at a smooth trot. At least he would finish the mission first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean who is flat amazing even though I've recently turned out nothing but darkness and angst.
> 
> Chapter title from 'Long Black Veil'. I like the version the Band sang at Woodstock personally.


	41. Sun is Cold and Rain is Hard

Aaron didn’t look at the plastic containers of blood he’d brought back for DNA confirmation when he handed them over. Xiong had bled out from shrapnel wounds by the time Aaron found him. It had taken most of the day to trail him to the thin, swampy stream where he’d keeled over. The rest of the night was spent running back through the jungle to make the meet with Byer. The blood was just a formality to confirm his death to the faceless men behind desks back in the US. Byer held the debrief outside. Aaron appreciated the gesture. He thought the inside of a building might suffocate him in the stench of the jungle and the smell of blood rising from his skin.

Byer let him wash up first. To minimize witnesses, the officer himself brought the bucket and rags. Aaron stripped to the waist and knelt in front of the bucket, sopping on water with a rag. Byer wet a piece of terry cloth and scrubbed the sweat from the lines of Aaron’s shoulders where it tended to pool and dry at night. When they were done, Aaron was pink beneath this tan. The light colored stone beneath his knees was streaked dark. “Report,” Byer ordered, settling on a bench in the shade after wrapping Aaron’s hand. “From the beginning. I’m recording this for the Captain as well.”

Aaron didn’t stand. He stayed kneeling in the sunlight instead. The burn against shoulders felt right. The words were clinical as he described the assassination, including the six civilian deaths he’d caused directly along with an unknown number of injuries. The patterns on the stone provided a soothing visual compared to the list of atrocities he described in a clipped tone. It was better than looking up and seeing the expression on Byer’s face. Seeing the moment his officer realized that Aaron, despite Xiong’s death, had failed him.

“Aaron,” Byer said firmly. “Look at me.” He waited until Aaron dragged his gaze away from the grisly design of grime and old blood beneath him. He didn’t seem upset, surprised, disgusted, or any of the other reactions Aaron had braced himself for. The cool distraction there made Aaron nauseous with unease. “We need to get out of country now. I need you to hold it together until we’re back in the States. What happened was terrible, but it was an accident. No one could have known, okay?”

The lack of reaction sat uneasily with Aaron. Byer was a solid officer, who abided by his rules of conduct like they were a religion. The world he moved in was dark and full of grey areas. That was the nature of intelligence work of any stripe, but he didn’t like innocents getting hurt if it could be avoided. It was why Byer had entrusted him with Jeff and let Aasiya, despite her age and duties at refugee camp, act as his handler. Aaron was well-behaved and careful around civilians, because Byer had trained him to be.

Bruce insisted dogs knew when their owners were lying. He argued with himself about it while Suzy and Aaron laughed into their beers. Aaron felt bile in the back of his throat as he realized Bruce, drunk as he was that night, might have had a point. It was cognitive dissonance the dogs must feel, with their owners smiling and laughing but smiling nervously. Cognitive dissonance like a good man ignoring the deaths of women and children. Byer was lying. It wasn't something Aaron had thought before, but dead little girl eyes made for one hell of a looking glass. Byer was subtly fiddling with his sunglasses, thumb rubbing along the frame. The motion was filed away in the back of Aaron's mind, associated with those times Byer had interacted with civilians in front of Aaron. It proved nothing, as small and harmless as it was, but Aaron refused to accept that he might just be watching as his world came into true focus.

"Sir, you're not telling me something," Aaron said. He wanted to sound confident. Instead, his voice cracked halfway through the statement. The friction of stone beneath his knees seemed like the only thing keeping him from sliding right off the world. The churning in his stomach floated up to his head as a vague dizziness of panic he hadn’t felt since Afghanistan. Rather than the flat denial and reassuring brusqueness Aaron hoped for, Byer hesitated for a breath.

Aaron dropped his chin down to his chest and closed his eyes. The raw panic left a bitter taste at the back of his tongue as it receded. Instead he felt drained and dirty as a used coffee cup. Kenneth was too simple to understand the concept of betrayal. His love for Byer and the program was flat, two dimensional, and painfully linear. Aaron was clever though. He knew what he’d agreed to let them do to his head and what kind of people asked to do things like that. The full implications had always been masked by Kenneth’s affections. Now Aaron stared his choices in the face and didn’t like what he saw.

There had been a better than average chance of collateral damage. Mandy had frowned over the satellite uplink at the decision to move forward despite the risk after the new information came to light. Byer wasn’t happy, but the CIA hadn’t given themselves enough breathing room when they were setting up the dominos for their coupe. Everything had to fall at the right moment. They hadn’t considered the impact of new data on the situation. So Byer had nodded and agreed to risk destroying his best asset. Mandy had voiced her concerns after everyone else was off the line.

“Outcome FIve’s pysch programming isn’t set up for this,” she said quietly. “You specifically tweaked his indoctrinated moral identity to your preference, sir. He’s going to use an IED to kill civilians. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t suicide.”

Byer didn’t bother hiding his exhaustion as he slumped in the wooden desk chair. “It’s only a probability, Captain. Even if it does come to pass, I’ll hold him together. Fuck. How the fuck is that incompetent product of nepotism still in charge? First Kramer fucks up Treadstone. Now this?” He didn’t throw anything at the wall. Not since he’d broken the Wright brothers mug Mandy’s husband had gotten her as an apology gift.

Mandy slumped down as well. Her posture was stiff compared to Byer’s liquid drape with muscles going loose and bones propping. “We knew what this was when we signed up, Rick. I’m sorry it has to be Aaron.”

“There’s a chance we can recover from this,” Byer argued more with himself than her. “The kid’s half in love with me. I’ll hold his hand through this. I’ve done it before. He’s my asset, Dita. We can hold this together.”

She didn’t argue, but she didn’t agree. Instead she said very quietly, “I’m sorry, Rick.” Byer didn’t protest this time. They were wasting time and taxpayer dollars to keep the link open, just looking at each other. But Mandy wouldn’t let it happen if the line wasn’t secure. He indulged himself, taking in the damp, greasy creases of her shirt collar and the sheen of unwashed hair pulled up tightly with pins. She was tired, hadn’t gone home to change. The pale cast to her lips attested to pain and a long time between meals. Her back was hurting her, but she was still tall and confident.

“Go home, Dita. See your husband, get some take out.” Byer’s fingers curled into fists with the desire to lay a hand on her shoulder. “Take some painkillers. Get some sleep. You look you’re back in Iraq.”

Mandy smiled slightly at that. “No sunburn for me this time, Rick. You though. I’ll send you that awful article again if you don’t start wearing sunscreen.” Byer shuddered theatrically. The smile on her face bloomed until it was visible to people other than Byer. “I’ll go home, sir. Watch yourself. I’m not there to cover you if you overreach.”

“I hear you, Captain. Apologize to the old man for me,” Byer said. His smile vanished when she signed off.

Now, Byer deeply regretted not bringing Mandy along. Too many years of her at his shoulder made him more dependent than he’d chosen to recognize. Without her weighting the space behind him, he was unbalanced by Aaron’s sudden flash of insight. Aaron hadn’t asked demanding questions since his remedial education, always willing to accept Byer’s interpretation unquestioningly. If he lied outright now, Aaron would know. If he admitted what he’d hidden, Aaron would be shattered. So he met in the middle with a truth Aaron might be able to stomach. “There was a discussion at the highest level about the possibility of civilian casualties. It was deemed to be a minimal risk at the time.”

“You knew,” Aaron said. He was pale and sickly looking, shaking like a spooked horse.

“No,” Byer said quickly. “No. I didn’t /know/, Aaron.” He reached out slowly like they were back at the beginning when the drugs and conditioning left Aaron on edge constantly. Aaron flinched backwards as Byer’s fingers brushed across his cheek. Before, Aaron had always settled himself and leaned into the touch. So Byer frowned and tried again, curving his palm over Aaron’s jaw line with firm pressure. Aaron literally stepped away.

Byer’s stomach dropped when he saw the devastation on the younger man’s face. He wasn’t dealing with Aaron Cross. The child-like confusion and upset in front of him was all Kenneth, and Kenneth didn’t understand things like probabilities and acceptable losses. Byer should have lied, because Aaron was only thinking in black and white. The old thought processes, spurred by grief and guilt, overwhelmed training. Byer damned himself with a drop of the truth, because he’d forgotten what he’d made his perfect soldier out of.

He let Aaron go. “Pack it in, soldier. We’re wheels up in eight hours, truck leaves in one. Watch your back. There’s going to be some local upheaval as the CIA gets their man into place. We’ll talk again before you leave. I need you calm so you’ll listen.” Aaron got slowly to his feet, moving with the careful stiffness of an old man. He pulled back on his sweat and blood sodden t-shirt and tightened the wrappings on his hand. The cut looked gruesome, painfully deep and in a very delicate part of the hand. Aaron didn’t seem too pained by it, so Byer assumed it was just an ugly wound but not as extensive as it appeared. Either way, in this emotionally charged atmosphere, it wasn’t worth arguing about.

“Yes, sir,” Aaron said, eyes on the ground as he slipped away.

Byer’s second attempt to explain himself didn’t get any further than his first. Aaron had to be ordered to look at him, and the expression in those pale eyes was empty. It would be easier if Aaron was angry. Anger could be defused and deflected. The cool rage which set Aaron’s mouth in a tight line was too smart for that. Byer didn’t dare try to touch him again. Aaron wouldn’t hurt him. They weren’t that far gone yet, but he wouldn’t appreciate it either. Byer didn’t want to push when he needed to draw Aaron back in.

It was a long, nearly silent flight home. Aaron, not a great conversationalist at any time, wasn’t interested in the new books Byer had on the geo-politics of the Middle East. Even the volume of Iranian poetry he’d brought to entice Aaron to rest didn’t garner a response. Instead, his agent spent the flight staring out the window, tapping on his knee. It was a little concerning that the rhythm matched the one he was taught to self-soothe. Still, Aaron wasn’t inclined to lash out or even to snap in frustration if his genial behavior with the civilians surrounding him was anything to go by. Byer held on to that controlled behavior as proof this too would pass. Aaron didn’t have anyone else who cared for him or any home to retreat to. In the end, he’d fall back to Byer’s way of thinking for lack of options.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the wonderful Julorean.
> 
> Chapter title from CCR's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain".


	42. I Have a Little Story for You

Peterson had never seen Aaron so quiet. Not after Landshuth had finally misstepped in her dance with Byer, not even during the fever that had nearly killed him. Granted most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Aaron normally and Aaron being too quiet. The man lived like a cat, all silent footsteps and darting out only for food and affection. Peterson hadn’t seen Aaron in person for two days. He would’ve suspected that Aaron had left the Virginia property completely if the required blood samples didn’t appear and the chems he left out disappeared.

Byer had come by several times. Aaron appeared when he called, but the officer always left frustrated. The visits had Aaron trashing punching bags and obstacle courses like a drunk frat boy instead of a highly trained government assassin. Peterson didn’t even dare try to reach out to his charge like he usually did for fear of Aaron looking at him with the same rage that the asset turned on Byer.

It couldn’t go on like this. The food Peterson left out wasn’t being eaten. The only liquid Aaron was taking was water from his bathroom tap. He’d left the property with a plastic wrapped bundle, waving at the camera as he passed. Peterson let him go. Even a dog needed to be let off leash sometimes or it would bite itself bloody from being tied up.

Aaron came back of course. The cameras didn’t catch his return trip, but there were tubes of blood in the fridge and the blue and green pills were gone from the silver medical tray.

Peterson steeled himself and walked around the complex, calling Aaron’s name on the off chance the man might want to go for a run instead of murder his trainer outright. Aaron didn’t appear. The next day, Peterson brought the digital recorder he’d hidden in the insulation in his attic to the facility along with bags of food. He’d hidden Landshuth’s last message to her boy. As much as he liked her, he didn’t dare risk his actions getting back to Byer. So he’d held onto it, cursing the yellow streak down his back as much as his sense of loyalty.

He’d kept his head down until Aaron stopped eating and Byer left frowning every visit. There was a schism there that not even the blind and fools would miss. Aaron still came when his master called, but the boy had other thoughts than the unquestioning loyalty of old churning in his too clever head. It was a bitter hope for Peterson. With the right help, Aaron could get out, could save himself. For that to happen, Peterson had to get Aaron’s attention. The recorder itself wouldn’t be enough. Aaron still ached and seethed for his first trainer. So he planned his bait carefully to keep Aaron in place long enough to hear out a dead woman.

His wife had cooked up a selection of delicacies meant to tempt a high metabolism not taking care of itself. She couldn’t know about Aaron, not any specifics. It was too dangerous. But she knew her husband. All Peterson had to tell her was that he had a boy who wasn’t eating. She was too good a woman to just let that pass. Peterson carefully cooled and heated everything as his wife had instructed. The rich pastry shells and slivers of sweets were bite-sized. He arranged everything on one of the mess tins Aaron used as carefully as if he were laying out a dish for Christmas.

Then he set the plate on the table of the small kitchen with a thermos of coffee, piping hot and from his home, and bottle of beer still cold and sweating. “Aaron. This is for you. My wife made it when she heard you weren’t eating.” On the table he left the note his wife had written, which said, ‘No one ever solved their problem by starving themselves to death’ and was signed with a heart. Beneath, he slipped the recorder, using his body to block the view of the camera. “I expect it to be gone when I come back. You’ll hurt her feelings if you don’t at least try some.” He glared mildly around the room, unsure where precisely Aaron had concealed himself, before leaving.

 

Aaron wondered what kind of woman would marry Peterson. He supposed the trainer was nice enough, but Aaron didn’t particularly care for his aesthetics. The food looked like it came out of a magazine. He popped one of the pieces of candied fruit in his mouth, rolling it around with his tongue. It was good. Turning his back to the camera, he scooped the pen-like recorder into his pocket. If Peterson was trying to hide it, it must be important. Picking up the plate, he let the camera catch him examining the note. The handwriting was small, precise, and light, but unhesitant. Aaron liked it, or maybe he just like the cheesecake bites. He left the note, taking his plate and the recorder into the air ducts.

The entire facility was wired, at least the inhabitable parts were. So Aaron had moved himself into the uninhabitable parts. The drop ceilings on the second floor had just enough height between the ceiling and subfloor that Aaron could sit cross-legged if he stooped.

He’d moved those things he hadn’t buried offsite to his new nest. All that was left was his MP3 player, laptop, and cell phone. He kept his knife in his boot these days. The recorder had a jack for headphones, so he used the ones from his MP3 player. Popping a stuffed pastry shell, something delicious and meaty, in his mouth, he slipped in the earbuds and hit the play button. The buds clattered against the drop ceiling a second later.

Still, the Rasar continued to speak. “Whatever they told you, neshama, it is a lie. No doubt they were thorough. It is what they do.” Aaron hit the pause button and took a shaky breath. He hadn’t let himself wonder about the Rasar. Not even as he combed through every other mission he’d been sent on. She had been his first kill in the program, and he needed to believe it was justified. It didn’t make any sense to hold on to the illusion at this point, but until he’d heard her defending herself (And she wouldn’t have bothered if there wasn’t something to defend. She’d never apologized for her actions before.) he’d been content not to consider his memories of the situation too closely. Steeling himself, he gritted his teeth and recognized she deserved this chance to defend what she’d done from her own perspective. It wasn’t like he’d left her with any other options for letting him know.

“It’s not your fault,” the Rasar continued when he hit the button. Her rolling accent was preserved with crystal clarity. Aaron closed his eyes and let it wash over him. “You did not trust me naively, nor did you harm me maliciously. If you are hearing this, then I failed you. I intended to take you to Israel. Where I knew people who could help you live a free life while retaining what was so hard won. Should you ever make it there, the arrangements I made will stand. Put your name in the wind with mine, and they will find you.”

She cleared her throat, years ago, and Aaron’s eyes itched. He rubbed at them, blinking to clear the tears. “I entrusted this message to Peterson, because he is not a brave man. But he is a fine friend. If Byer stopped us, you would not hold me fondly in your memory. If Peterson feels it is safe to give you this, then Byer has betrayed you as well. Now that you have seen, you have two choices, b’nee, die inflicting as much damage to NRAG as you can or flee to a new life. I have little useful to offer you if you take the first path. I gave you tools, but you will die for challenging them openly.”

“If you want to run, then know it will not go quickly if you do not wish to be caught. However, there is a way. Outcome is a highly structured program. Many documents have been written to cover all contingencies. They will react predictably, so long as they believe you predictable. Byer will have changed some things with my death, but not the asset handling procedures he and I wrote. He would not bother when he believes the mutiny put down.”

Aaron tipped his head back against the wall and listened to the plan the Rasar laid out methodically. It would take at least a year, a tightly controlled spiral of sulking and disobedience carefully titrated to keep from becoming more of a liability than an asset. They would send him to Alaska to settle down at one of the wilderness training facilities. There would be chems stored there, enough to hold him over until he could get to Israel - so long as he moved quickly. He could take a bush plane back to the US and pick up the car she’d stashed for him all those years ago. There was money, passports, and everything else he needed to get out of the country hidden in the dull-colored sedan.

It was all too neat to be a Hail Mary. Her plans were tight and precise like she was still pulling strings from beyond the grave. Like she’d planned Aaron’s whole life down to the second. Aaron wouldn’t be surprised if she had. The Rasar had helped build the handling procedures for Outcome assets. Byer didn’t trust her, but he didn’t waste resources, especially ones like Esther Landshuth. Before he’d tricked Aaron into killing her, he had gotten everything useful he could from her on paper. Aaron didn’t doubt what she’d given him was good. The rules and structures she laid in place had to stand close scrutiny, but no one could expect a game this long. Usually, the death ended the match rather than just being another card on the table. There was a way out of Outcome, a hidden passage in its sterile regulation and omniscient presence. Esther Landshuth had built it herself out of words, concepts, and the reliability of people to use what they knew worked rather than making things up on the fly.

Then she’d told a recorder, preserving the secret until Aaron was ready to hear it. Aaron tucked his face into his knees and cried. Gasping sobs shook his shoulders as he bit his shirt to muffle the noise. He’d forgotten how angry he was at her until he’d heard her voice again. The cold rage of a child abandoned unjustly. Except that he’d killed the only woman who gave enough of a damn to die for him. The last words she’d said, after a steady stream of tactical information, were in Hebrew. “Ye'simcha Elohim ke-Ephraim ve hee-Menashe. Ye'varech'echa Adonoy ve'yish'merecha. Ya'ir Adonoy panav eilecha viy-chuneka. Yisa Adonoy panav eilecha, ve'yasim lecha shalom. Ani ohevet otkhah, b’nee.”

Aaron replayed them again and again, wishing he’d bothered to look into learning Hebrew while he was off his leash. The words meant something, or she wouldn’t have bothered saying them. They didn’t sound like the profanity she sometimes spouted. Nor did it match any of the words he remembered her muttering to herself when she was tired. If it was important, the Rasar was a pragmatist. She would have said it in English. That meant it was a personal message. One she felt the need to say but no need for Aaron to understand. “Bitch,” Aaron said thickly over the recorder repeating the words on loop. He smeared the worst of the snot off his upper lip and onto the hem of his t-shirt.

Then he took a deliberate bite of the food. Mrs. Peterson was right. Starving himself wasn’t a viable solution. Even now it was only because of Peterson’s patience Aaron wasn’t being force fed through a tube, and Aaron couldn’t risk that kind of attention. Drawing Byer’s full focus would topple the delicate plans the Rasar had put in place. Aaron chewed the little piece of meat wrapped cheese thoroughly before swallowing. His stomach growled for more. He didn’t ignore it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, betaed by the brilliant Julorean. All remaining mistakes are me tinkering without supervision!
> 
> If you want a translation of the Rasar's message google the phrases and you'll find it. Otherwise, you can be patient and find out with Aaron. ;)
> 
> This my explanation for how Aaron's escape was so neatly arranged. He knew there were chems in Alaska. He had car with fake IDs, a sizable chunk of cash, and stashed guns. It just seems improbable he managed all of that alone. As Landshuth's Plan B though, it makes sense.
> 
> Chapter title from "Alive" by Pearl Jam. This song gets blared a lot while I write. That and "Rockin' In the Free World".


	43. The Wheel's Still in Spin

Aaron was sick with fury from the time he woke up to the time he passed out from exhaustion until he finally slipped his leash. The groundwork for getting sent north required a level of verisimilitude that couldn’t all be faked. At first, Aaron tried to forget Laos and focus on the future. Memories of Laos made it hard to sleep, hard to stay calm, but, as he let it go, he started feeling guilty. But not about the people he’d killed. Following the Rasar’s carefully laid plans meant betraying Outcome, Peterson, Byer. It meant seeing Jeff again was no longer even a pipe dream. Captain Mandy kept too close of an eye on her children for it to be a possibility, even in Aaron’s imagination. To escape, Aaron had to destroy or abandon the only family he remembered.

It choked him hard enough he almost gave in and admitted everything. He’d be forgiven, of course, if he just handed over the Rasar’s message and admitted he’d considered it. Byer would understand. The officer always understood. When he found himself walking towards Peterson’s on-site quarters before breakfast with the digital recorder in his pocket, he realized that if he was going to make it to Alaska he needed something to mitigate the fear of losing everything Outcome had given him.

Rage was very good at numbing the utter black panic which lay outside Outcome. So he remembered with a vengeance the little girl, the old men, and the young women he’d killed. Whenever he felt his resolve waver, he’d wonder about the low-recon assassinations he’d been ordered to perform, barely any information other than a face and a location. Most were probably monsters, but he didn’t know for sure. He made himself review critically and consider the evidence on everything he’d done on orders and never thought to question. The rage was tainted with disgust, loathing for his own blindness and stupidity. There was no forgiveness for his sins until he was done using the bitterness to hold himself together.

He got mean. There was no other choice to ensure no one would get close enough to realize what he was doing. Suddenly, urban centers and areas high in civilians were off limits. His handlers in the field were all military and intelligence, cold-eyed men and women who wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he put a toe out of line. Aaron made sure to show just enough spirit to make them nervous. They would be reporting his fractiousness back to Byer, and there was always something to report as Aaron took to going walkabout for twelve then twenty four hours after a mission. Most of the time he just found somewhere and slept. If he was urban enough, he’d steal a book or two as well to pass the time. He picked up a shadow after the first time. One he could usually shake, but no one told him to stop.

Peterson tried to gentle him. Aaron gave the trainer a broken arm and concussion for his trouble. He woke up in his room, emptied of everything except a small, mostly harmless selection of toiletries and a pile of paperback books, with the door locked and barred. It was the end of his freedom of movement. Peterson let him out for exercise but stayed out of arm’s reach and carried a gun loaded with sedative darts. They stopped talking. Peterson gave orders, and Aaron obeyed. There wasn’t even an attempt at reconciliation - though Peterson didn’t seem to hold a grudge. Aaron wondered how much the Rasar had told him before she died or whether Peterson had figured it out himself.

The Virginia facility’s security was beefed up. Jack, the head of Jeff Mandy’s security detail, and his partner Bobby Lee took over close quarters combat practice while Peterson observed. Of the three, the two that weren’t sparring with Aaron were always armed. When Aaron was on the range, one of them was always behind him with a live round in the chamber.

Aaron made sure his face was firmly hidden in a pillow when he realized no one had touched him except to land a blow in two months. He broke that night. If the cameras had seen… If someone had come, like they always had before when he cried, Alaska would never have happened.

Byer had tried to reach out at first. The books were his, complete with his scrawled notes in the margins. He was smarter than Peterson though. He made sure to bring a bodyguard during his visits and never let Aaron get too close. It was a good thing he did, because Aaron fantasized about snapping the man’s neck until it stopped making him nauseous. Desensitization was a wonderful thing. The Rasar had used it to get him over his fear of IEDs. Aaron thought she’d approve of his new use for the technique. Byer gave up after Aaron proved he was still mission ready, would pull the trigger on command, but would savage anyone who tried to get close or be kind. Aaron watched with a snarl as his trainer and his officer pulled away. There was no affection to be seen there anymore. Their well-trained dog was fighting his leash. So they left him out in the cold until he was attention-starved enough to come back inside.

The only thing Aaron didn’t rip apart in his mind, analyze, and find some way to turn it into kindling for his anger was the death of the agent who went after Jeff Mandy. Aaron didn’t know what the other asset had seen to push him rogue, but gunning for Jeff instead of his mother crossed a line Aaron wouldn’t apologize for holding. Jeff Mandy was just a hockey player who happened to have a ruthless intelligence officer for a mother. Killing innocents was never acceptable. No matter whom they were related to or how desperate Aaron was for a distraction.

Aaron kept to the schedule the Rasar laid out. To do otherwise was to let go of his guide wire while blindfolded. It was an accident that put him ahead of schedule. He’d never admit it, but he was furious with himself for the fuck up that lead to his escape from Outcome.

He missed his sample drop in Syria. The target was dead of course, but Aaron had exposed himself to make sure the man died out of sight of his wife and children. With the military intelligence’s secret police hot on his heels, he didn’t dare stop to make the dead-drop. If he was caught, the Syrian government would cut off his head and mail the tape of his execution to the CIA as a warning after torturing him for any information, useful or not. Aaron would slit his own throat before it came to that. He’d decided long ago in Afghanistan he’d commit suicide before letting himself be captured in the Middle East. The Taliban provided enough brutal examples to make bleeding out seem like the better option.

Aaron ended up fleeing into the Syrian Desert on foot, running almost due southeast from Damascus towards the border with Jordan. Pale as he was, Aaron couldn’t risk the easier route along the roads to the south. His slip meant every foreigner in the country with light skin was being detained and questioned. Instead, he hiked camel roads across the steppes down into the sand dunes. It took him seven long days to make it across the border. An operative from GID (Jordan’s intelligence service had always been sympathetic to anti-terrorism stings) found him by the side of a dirt road drinking ditch water with goats and praying that his immune system was improved enough to handle it. By that time, Aaron had been sixty hours without water. There was nothing left in his body to sweat, and he was shivering cold despite the sun blazing down. The Jordanian agent had begged him not die in three dialects on the drive to the nearest hospital where he checked Aaron in, claiming the American was a hiker who’d gotten lost.

Taariq stayed with Aaron through the re-hydration process. It took the nurse four attempts to find a useable vein. The GID agent held Aaron’s hand like it wasn’t ridiculous. Aaron figured with his mouth as swollen and chapped as it was, the other man couldn’t tell the difference between a grimace of pain and any other expression. He appreciated the thoughtfulness anyways. Taariq was Aaron’s age, but his wide eyes and general air of flustered panic gave away his inexperience in the field. Aaron managed to talk him down, to the great amusement of the nurses. By the time Aaron could sweat again, they’d collected a small following of off-duty women who were impressed by Aaron’s Arabic and entertained by his banter with Taariq.

The attention was enough to get Aaron a container of petroleum jelly for his mouth and a pretty nurse to dab it on. Taariq was suitably impressed. Aaron happily proved his ability to flirt, respectful with a self-effacing smile to draw them in, in any language. It wasn’t until the doctor, more amused than annoyed, came to shoo everyone away that Aaron realized he was smiling. The expression had re-opened the split on his bottom lip. He numbed the wound with some of the ice chips the nurses had been feeding him, tipping his head back so the bloody water dribbled into his mouth. It took several mouthfuls of ice chips to settle the anxiety rolling in his stomach back to its usual low murmur. He slept after that, or pretended too, until Taariq was recalled.

A representative from the American embassy put Aaron on a plane with his hospital band still on his arm. The doctors were reluctant to let him, but he’d recovered so rapidly that they didn’t have a choice. From there, he’d landed on the doc’s table. Tired, and still tasting sand every time he swallowed, he’d reached out. The doc knocked him out early when he challenged her, eyes nervous, but her hands were so gentle on his shoulders as she eased him down that he could only be grateful for the contact. He woke up in Alaska with a drug hangover and nowhere near as much relief as he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean the amazing.
> 
> GID (General Intelligence Directorate) of Jordan works with the CIA on counter-terrorism. They're actually pretty scary. Wikipedia's article on them is actually pretty good if you're curious.
> 
> This would be pre-civil war Syria that Aaron is dealing with. I'm having to fudge the timelines around to get it to slot better with the Avengers timeframe.
> 
> Chapter title from 'The Times They are a-Changin'.


	44. And Music is Her Name

Dr. Marta Shearing wasn’t what Aaron thought she was. He’d rescued her out of desperation. The Rasar’s plan had gone so far sideways he was skidding frantically just to stay upright. Sure, he’d saved her from imminent death, but he didn’t expect anything more than a reluctant ally. She’d always been politely distant during examinations. Her hands, warm even with the latex, had become familiar and comforting even as they remained impersonal. He watched them flutter about like nervous birds when he went down with fever as her virus infiltrated and re-wrote his DNA. Before, those fingers had always been orderly as she’d handled him. When he reached out with shaky hands to calm her, she leaned in like he didn’t terrify her into flinching every time he turned around.

He didn’t remember much about sweating on the bed in the cheap Filipino motel, but the hazy glimpses he could recall were of a weary, affectionate smile. The debris he’d woken up to told a more complete story. Bowls of water and rags from cooling him down, bottles of water for drinking, bullion for broth, and piles of blankets were evidence of an unnecessary, but welcome, degree of care. She told him that he’d wanted to hold her when the fever was at its worst. He didn’t press further, slightly embarrassed, but her lack of qualms about touching him afterwards suggested she’d responded to his begging.

Aaron begged again when he couldn’t fight off the low-grade infection from the bullet wound while his immune system still reeled from the viral-out fever. He could remember Marta crawling into the narrow, ship’s bunk next to him and stroking his hair this. She sang to him, in her low, nasal accent, when he shook. When he asked where a woman from Madison learned very Scottish pub songs, she told him about her time as a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh. It explained the odd burr in her accent, a holdover from her time there.

She slept with him every night as he recovered, her slight form curled into his body. It was safer that way. There was a gun near Aaron’s hand at all times. If Marta was pressed nearly skin to skin with him, he could be sure she wasn’t in his line of fire if he had to shoot fast. They dealt with his morning hard-on by ignoring it. The first time Aaron had been well enough to have morning wood Marta had woken up to the unpleasant sensation of being poked in the stomach. She hadn’t been awake enough to realize Aaron wasn’t her ex and elbowed him in the face. The captain of the fishing vessel Marta had gotten them on was kind enough not to comment on the mysteriously appearing black eye.

After that, they slept back to front, and Aaron tried not to rub up against her more than necessary when he slid out of bed at sunrise. But the sheer awkwardness of the situation meant that Marta never wanted to discuss it. Aaron was more amused than anything by the flush she got when she woke up, stretched, and realized where she was. During examinations, he’d been naked and drugged unconscious while she manhandled him. There wasn’t an inch of skin she hadn’t seen, poked, or stuck a needle in. The irony of her growing modesty now, when he was always at least partially clothed, was a bitter reminder of their history.

A history Aaron didn’t want to talk about anymore than Marta did. He avoided it by spending his days in the sun on deck, shirtless and letting his skin go dark as he helped their host with light chores. She worked as well, usually repairing nets wearing heavy gloves. They lingered in the sea breeze each day until it was too cold for the light clothes they had. Marta’s clothes had been left at the motel. Her pajamas were Aaron’s t-shirt. Their jackets survived at least, but they hand exactly one and a half pairs of pants, two pairs of underwear in very different sizes, a bra, a tank top, and two t-shirts to split between them. After skidding over the cement, Marta’s jeans and Aaron’s cargo pants weren’t fit for their original owners. Marta wore the cargo pants as cutoffs and the jeans were repurposed as rags.

It didn’t matter the Rasar’s money, sewn into the lining of Aaron’s backpack with her neat stitches, was theirs. Until they decided on somewhere safe to make land, there would be no new clothes. Marta was stoic about the situation. She never complained or asked Aaron to do anything about it. It was just another small annoyance as Aaron turned his back every night to let her change with a modicum of privacy.

They had come to a silent sort agreement on their shared pasts. Aaron listened to Marta talk about everything but the things he wanted to know, and she didn’t ask him about Kenneth or why all the pieces had already been in place for Aaron to run from Outcome. Then, as Aaron was doing their laundry in his boxers, sloshing the sea water and sliver of soap around, Marta’s cotton underwear, badly abused by the conditions, feel apart. The thin material had started developing holes after the first wash three days into their sea voyage. Marta continued wearing them to bed more for the psychological reassurance than coverage. Aaron had no idea how to tell her that, during their second wash at sea, her underwear was no more.

With a heavy sigh, he set the rags to the side and finished scrubbing his jeans. The jeans he pulled on wet, stripping off his boxers and tossing them in the metal bucket. His cheeks were flushed red as he quickly examined and scrubbed his boxers clean. Once washed, they weren’t too objectionable and might be a suitable replacement for Marta. Then he wrung and laid the clothes, Marta’s tank top and bra, one t-shirt, the cargo pants, and his boxers out to dry, sprawling on the deck himself to dry off his jeans. When everything was closer to damp than sopping wet, he gathered the pile of clothes up and delicately tucking the remains of Marta’s underwear in his pocket.

Marta was curled up in the storage room the captain had given them as a cabin. She had her knees tucked up against her chest, Aaron’s spare shirt pulled modestly down over her ass. A book the captain’s son had lent them was open in front of her. Aaron set the clothes on the crate they used as a side table. “Marta.”

She looked up with a frown. “What’s wrong, Aaron.” Aaron fished the rags out of his pocket and offered them to her. She looked at the scraps of cotton, rolling them between her fingers and said, “Oh,” in a hollow, little voice.

“You can have my boxers, if you don’t mind me wearing jeans to bed,” Aaron offered quietly.

Marta made a choking sound, fingers clenching white on the rags. “It’s fine.” She breathed in raggedly. “That’s fine. Thank you, Aaron.” Aaron dropped to his haunches, tilting his face up to watch her on the wide, blanket-padded shelf they used as a bed. She was sniffing and rubbing her eyes ferociously, but the tears weren’t cooperating. “It’s so stupid,” she said suddenly, throwing the underwear across the room. “It’s just underwear! Why am I crying?”

“The fact you just went from respected PhD to fugitive from the CIA might have something to do with that, Doc,” Aaron reminded her, keeping his tone even and light. “It’s never easy, losing your stuff. Especially when you don’t have much to begin with.”

The book was carefully set aside as Marta curled in on herself, rocking back and forth. Aaron stayed where he was. He wanted to reach out. Tucking her into his side helped with the nightmares, but reality wasn’t so easily soothed away. So he watched silently as she cried herself out into his t-shirt. When she was done, she wiped the snot off her face with the hem of her t-shirt. Aaron averted his eyes respectfully towards the ceiling.

“You never look at me,” Marta said, hoarse with snot. “Not unless you’re sick.”

Aaron brought his eyes back down to her face. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Doc, but you don’t really want me looking at you in the situations we’ve been in lately. Don’t really want to push my luck sleeping next to you. You got a mean elbow jab.”

Marta gave a watery laugh. “I have been really uptight…”

“Not uptight,” Aaron corrected. “Off balance.”

She inclined her head, accepting the phrase. “I just… I can hardly stand to look at myself in the mirror, and you never look at me.”

He tilted his head to catch her eyes. “I do look, when you’re looking the other way. We’re partners, Marta. I’m not going to leave you to fend for yourself just because you feel all fucked up and don’t know which way is north. I’ve got your back.”

“That’s… Not what I meant.” Marta sniffed again. “Men look at me. I know they do, objectively. I’ve had independent confirmation from neutral third parties as well as anecdotal evidence. But you don’t. Not unless you’re sick. I… Please, Aaron. Don’t hate me for what I did. I probably deserve it, but I couldn’t stand it if you hated me.”

Aaron frowned standing up and sitting on the edge of the shelf. “I don’t hate you, Marta. I don’t like everything that happened, but I’d do it again. You fixed me, Doc. I’m grateful for that. I don’t look at you, because you don’t look at your bed partner like that unless they want you to. Being sick made me rude, stupid, and needy. But I never asked permission. You never gave it.”

Marta huffed out a small breath. “Permission… Of course you would need permission,” she said absently in her academic tone. “You learned from what…from what we did to you rather than just accepting it. Especially now that the neuro-effectives are out of your system. The short-term programming wouldn’t stay set.”

With a grimace, Aaron muttered, “So that’s the headache.” At Marta’s curious glance he expanded, “Withdrawal headache ever since I ran out of chems. I thought it was because of the blues.”

“No,” Marta shook her head. “You all had a cocktail of psychoactive drugs that you were given daily. My guess is those were disguised as your greens. They were a lower dose of what you got at the beginning of the program, a maintenance dose. It was meant to keep you psychological stable and emotionally content as well as receptive to Outcome. Some the others were given things to suppress empathy. You were always a little low though, dosage wise. Mood stabilizers only, and even then, at the end, just enough to keep you from becoming unsound. Eric Byer had one of his specialists tinker each time you were adjusted. There were no physical effects. So we didn’t argue.”

Aaron took the news thoughtfully, scrubbing a hand through his short hair. “Huh. Well, that explains some things.” He didn’t appear too shaken by the news. “What do you mean about permission and me learning?”

“You never gave anyone permission,” Marta said with a hard swallow, fighting to keep her tone scientific. “But you learn empathically. It’s why you blended so well even when you didn’t. Why people like you instinctively. You didn’t like what happened. So you break the pattern rather than repeating it.” She took another deep breath to keep from more tears. “You can look at me if you want. Turnabout’s fair play.”

Considering it, Aaron shook his head. “Not in this case, Doc. It’s not about me. What do you want?”

“I want to go home,” Marta said thickly, the tears starting up again. “I know I can’t, but I want to so bad. Even though there’s nothing left.”

“Oh, Doc,” Aaron sighed. He opened his arms, and she crawled onto his lap, heedless of the bare skin she was flashing. His lips were pressed to the top of her head as he rocked her. Marta put her arms around his chest, pressing her cheek to his shoulder, and let herself wail like a child, mourning herself. Aaron held her tight like she might try to fly away if given the chance. She might have if was anyone but him holding her in place. The woman she had been was dead. Survival was the new game, and Dr. Marta Shearing didn’t have it in her. Aaron’s Marta, who he called Doc with shy smile, was a warrior with the will to match. She’d be fine. Aaron promised her as much, and she wouldn’t disbelieve the last anchor in her sea-tossed world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, betaed by the lovely Julorean.
> 
> I never really bought into the whole 'Marta just falls for Aaron' bit at the end of the movie. It's one thing to nurture when the person is sick, weak, and nonthreatening and quite another once your assassin is a fully-functional, healthy male again. Not to mention the sheer amount of history they have to work through before they can even begin to trust each other emotionally enough to have a stable relationship. Right now, what they're building is a partnership of trust. The rest will come with time.
> 
> Song title from "Southern Cross" by CSNY.


	45. When It All Happens Nobody Wins

“Here,” Mandy pressed the cut crystal glass into Byer’s hand. “You need this.” She settled stiffly into the chair across from him. “They’re in the wind, sir.”

“At least Aaron isn’t fond of reporters,” Byer said grimly. “Shit.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “Clear out this building, Mandy. Everyone. Aaron’s not interested in revenge.”

Mandy reached out and took Byer’s free hand. “Wanting to get me alone, sir?” she asked, trying to raise a small smile at least. Byer didn’t respond, downing the scotch she’d picked for him. She left him to brood. Jack and Bobby-Lee stood guard on the office door. “Clear the building, gentlemen. Everyone. Vendel and Ingram as well. The Colonel wants privacy. You two can leave after you lock the place down. I have no doubt your cats are missing you.”

They saluted and slipped away to do her bidding. Mandy walked over to her own office. Lisa jumped awake as her shoulder was shaken. “Go home, sweetheart,” Mandy sighed. “We lost. There’ll be no more work tonight. Take the next couple of days. Paid of course. It won’t count against your vacation.”

“Is the Colonel okay, Dita?” Lisa asked around a yawn.

“No. He’s not. Bobby-Lee and Jack will be around to walk you to your car.” Mandy gave her security a half-hug. “Go ahead and get your things together.”

Lisa dipped her head and murmured, “Yes, Captain.” 

The woman making rounds with her leather heels thumping like combat boots on the thin carpet wasn’t the Assistant Director of NRAG. She was someone with far sharper claws and fewer qualms. Anyone who crossed her tonight would find themselves without a job if not without a few teeth. The Colonel was hurt, and Mandy would make sure he was safe until his public face was secure again.

“They didn’t get him then,” Bobby-Lee said softly as he locked the doors of the recently vacated offices.

Jack shook his head. “No, they didn’t. He made it out, just like Peterson said. Too fucking stubborn to die.”

“Did you see the Colonel? He looked gutshot.” The brutal amusement in Bobby-Lee’s voice was unsettling on the genial man.

“Down boy,” Jack warned, checking the windows. “Poor bastard was more than a little bit in love with the kid. Have some sympathy. It’s not like you haven’t fallen for the wrong man at the wrong time.”

Bobby-Lee shrugged. “I never tried to kill you on my own recognizance.”

Snorting, Jack reminded his partner, “Duty implies certain things, you hick bastard. You know that. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying, cut that bastard some slack. Rocks, glass houses. That’s all.” He opened the door to the security room. “Shut off all the cameras except the main hallways and externals.” He waited for them to comply then said, “Get out.”

Wisely, the uniformed security guards packed it in without protest. They nodded their polite good nights and headed for the door. Bobby Lee panned through the cameras to make sure the Captain had the privacy she wanted. He may have felt vindicated by Aaron’s escape, but he knew who kept him and Jack in the style to which they were accustomed.

Jack set the security system to call all hands on deck if breached. The Colonel and the Captain could handle themselves for the five minutes it would take to get boots on the ground. Then he locked the system to require Mandy’s password to reset parameters. “Done. Let’s go home. I feel like getting drunk.”

“You’re gonna regret that in the mornin’, son,” Bobby Lee sighed. “You ain’t twenty-five no more.” He prowled after his partner as Jack did a final sweep of the areas without cameras.

“Probably, but it’ll make me feel better tonight.” Jack nodded to the Captain before locking her and the Colonel in the suite of two offices, library, and conference room that comprised NRAG’s inner sanctum. The doors were deceptive like the building itself. Byer and Mandy’s offices with adjoined rooms acted as the panic room in case of emergency. Locked, those doors wouldn’t open without help from someone inside the room.

Mandy pulled out the bottle of single malt she kept in her bottom drawer next to the bottle of gin her husband gave her every year for her birthday. Byer was in the conference room with laptop already hooked to the projector. He’d also pulled a bucket of ice and bottles of tonic and spring water from the fridge in his office. The quinine in tonic water had anti-inflammatory properties. Mandy’s back was a good excuse to keep it on hand. It was also useful for nights like this.

Outcome Five’s file was projected across the white board in timeline form. Byer was making notes in black marker on the board. Mandy poured their drinks into clean coffee mugs, dropping several cubes of ice in her gin and tonic and just a dash of water for Byer’s scotch. She handed him his mug, a gift from Jeff with his Juniors team logo on it, and reviewed his notes.

“You really think Five might try to find Bourne?” she asked, savoring a bitter sip of her drink. “He hasn’t mentioned Bourne for over a year.”

“Aaron never says what he’s thinking in English,” Byer said wryly. “He never forgot Jason. Take a look at this.” He walked over to his laptop and pulled up a digital photo of Aaron with a man and woman hanging off of him grinning. “This showed up on the Facebook page of Susan King of Melbourne, Australia. That’s her and her long-term boyfriend Bruce Robinson with Aaron. They have his name down as B. Aaron Gamble. Look at Robinson.”

Mandy sighed and focused on the civilian’s face. “Round face shape, soft at the cheeks, dark hair, light eyes.” She glanced at the woman, then did a double take. “They could be siblings. Similar face shapes, dark hair, light eyes. Pull up a photo of Bourne.” The photo popped up. Byer already had it queued. 

“Jesus. Do you think Five even noticed he has a type?”

Byer shook his head. “I doubt it. After all that work we did to make him open to the idea of emotionally bonding with Bourne, it’s practically Pavlovian. That was one experiment that worked a little too well.” Setting down his mug, he brought up the spreadsheet listing the psychoactive dosages Aaron had been on. “Good news is, we find Shearing, we find Aaron.”

“Withdrawal?” Mandy asked. Byer nodded. “His dosage wasn’t that high though.”

“It was enough to reduce social anxiety, suppress feelings of loneliness, and support a general sense of well-being. He’s never functioned without chemical support before. When he gets back to civilization, he’ll find it harder to maintain the veneer he was taught in deception training for long periods of time. It’s unlikely he’ll find a third party, unrelated to his past, that he trusts enough to support him through the transition. He may try to leave her, but he won’t stay away for long.” Byer closed the file and opened the NRAG’s file on Bourne. “Unless he can find someone else to act his support system instead. I know they think Bourne’s body is somewhere in the East River, but I don’t want to assume anything. Have Ingram continue to flag any CIA chatter involving Bourne.”

Mandy made a note on her own laptop to have all the flagged chatter fast-tracked directly to her. “Where else could he go? How likely is it that Landshuth’s arrangements for him to hide in Israel still apply?”

Byer frowned, considering. “She had lot of political currency to spend. Assuming she burned most of it. Israel is a distinct possibility. We don’t have enough friends there to get eyes inside, but let’s start paying attention to American and Canadian citizens buying plane tickets to Tel Aviv. It’s a long shot, but it can’t hurt. We might lucky if he gets desperate.”

“He’s a very long way from desperate.” Mandy swallowed the last of her gin and poured herself another. “We can change that.” She held the glass tight to hide the tremors shaking her fingers.

“Do it,” Byer said roughly, generously refilling his own glass. “ _Is nos mos vallo._ Goddammit. I hate this fucking waste.”

“This isn’t on us,” Mandy said coolly. “It never was. Aaron isn’t Bourne. He isn’t going to go running to the press. We’ve got time to clean this up. He’ll get tired before we run out of resources.”

Byer rolled his mug between his palms. “Aaron doesn’t deserve a bullet for his service to his country, but that’s all we have to give him.” The moody glare he shot the scotch had nothing to do with its quality. “Thanks to the clusterfuck Abbott left behind.”

The forensics had been painful. Mandy and Byer called in every favor owed and threatened anyone they had leverage on to rebuild exactly what had happened between Bourne and Abbott in a hotel room in Berlin. If Byer was going to spend the effort to hunt Aaron down and execute him, he wanted to know why, now that he had the time to do the research.

It was a mess of mishandled funds and power-grabbing decisions at the CIA. Bourne had done the CIA a favor when he killed Conklin and cornered Abbott. Byer was going to feed Turso his balls for not figuring out what was going on beneath his nose. Byer had taken great pains to make sure Turso was well integrated into the CIA as NRAG’s liaison just for situations like this. To see all that effort rendered useless by a Cold War leftover who didn’t have the decency to die from a whore and coke induced heart attack before he got good men killed was infuriating enough that the taste of very good scotch couldn’t cover the bitterness. If Abbott hadn’t shot himself, Byer would strangle the man with his own bare hands. In a just world, Byer would have known about Abbott’s little side business in detail and had Aaron terminate the man before Bourne’s girlfriend was murdered.

“This got out of control exponentially,” Byer muttered as he flipped through his notes on the timeline. “I need an honest assessment here, Dita. What’s the probability of minimizing our losses and bringing Aaron back effectively if we do corner him?”

“Not good. To contain him securely would mean severing all of his contacts that might support him outside the program, some with extreme prejudice. That only ends one way, Rick. Putting him down is kinder than forcing his hand until he does it himself.” Mandy shut the lid of her laptop. “There’s nothing more we can do tonight. Our boy’s gone, Rick. All that’s left is getting drunk enough to forget why we hate our jobs some days.” She held up her gin in emphasis. “Queue it up.”

Rick refilled his drink before closing out of all the files and delving into his personal video files. He double clicked the video file labeled ‘noonecantell.divx’, fancifully renamed by Dita during a drunken night similar to this one. The credits started to roll in black and white.

The Day the Earth Stood Still had become their movie during the first Desert Storm. Somehow a DVD had found its way to Byer. He’d sent it back to the United Sates with Mandy when she was sent home to recover. This was a digital copy of the same disk. The movie appealed to the pathetic, decrepit remains of the idealism that had driven them to the Air Force Academy in the first place. Jaded as they were by their years of service, it still acted up sometimes, fed by vague hope they would get to be the good guys again. When the situation inevitable left them holding a bag of sins with bloody hands, they got drunk and put their movie on.

Mandy would bet good money that Jack and Bobby Lee would be surreptitiously doing the same thing if Jack’s neutral expression as he left was anything to go by. She’d picked her personal wet-work men for the compatibility of their temperaments with hers. It made them perfectly reliable in all situations, no matter how morally uncomfortable, but, if she was feeling wrong-footed and frustrated, so were they. Bobby Lee would be petulant for a few months. He always was after they had to do something distasteful, but Jack would rein him in. Jack never forgot the favors she’d traded to save Bobby Lee’s career and get both of them seconded to NRAG.

It was unfortunate they were both fond of Outcome Five. They’d met him briefly, but Aaron was naively charming to the point even Mandy had softened towards him. She didn’t blame Jack and Bobby Lee. Her son had described the trained killer as ‘sweet’. Byer had even forgotten what Aaron was sometimes. It would have been easier if she could loose her two best men after Aaron instead of playing the long game, but Bobby Lee had a soft heart for all his gruff exterior. There was a chance she’d end up the evil queen to Aaron’s Snow White. She’d read fairytales to her boys enough times to know how that situation would end.

Tomorrow Mandy and Byer would swallow aspirin with vitamin B enriched water and go back to being the soulless directors of NRAG. Jack and Bobby Lee would be Mandy’s soldiers, and Aaron would be just another target to be terminated. Until then, Mandy let herself sink into the grainy black and white footage, curling into Byer’s side. He wrapped an arm around her so her back was supported against his side. The position let her tuck her head beneath his chin like college sweethearts, bolstered by the knowledge the building had been cleared and no one would ever know about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Julorean got a dog's breakfast and somehow found a chapter. She's amazing like that.
> 
> As for Jack and Bobby Lee, they were always supposed to be domestic partners as well as professional ones. Mandy's paranoia demands nothing less than absolute loyalty from her personal wet work men. By saving them from court martial, employing them, and letting them stay together, she's secured herself two capable subordinates with a sense of honor that would make betraying her an anathema.
> 
>  _Is nos mos vallo._ This is actually the US Army motto in Latin. It means, 'This we will defend.' I think it's also very appropriate for the man Aaron Cross will become. Even if this context Byer refers to NRAG.
> 
> The original _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ is an oddly comforting movie. There's something about its blatant cynicism and quiet optimism about the human race.


	46. Remember When We Used to Sing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GAH! I'm so sorry. This chapter should help make things make a little more sense. I meant to do a flashback thing to make it more like the movies, but apparently I can't count when sitting in an airport. I'm now happily home for bit and planning on doing some serious writing.

Marta married Aaron in Indonesia. She felt silly having a wedding at a small Buddhist temple, but she’d never been to a Christian church after her mother’s funeral. And it didn’t seem right to start clinging to the religion of her birth now. Aaron had no religious affiliation he could remember and no preference. The monks had been content to help them for a donation and Aaron’s able assistance with some of the local Muslim teenagers causing mischief on the temple grounds. Aaron ran the jokesters down when they tried to egg the monks. Then he gave them a stern talking to about religious tolerance and parental bias. Marta was sure that the intimidating snarl Aaron wore as he lectured was more effective than the words. She had to cram a fist in her mouth to keep from laughing and spoiling the whole thing.

The monks, appreciative of Aaron’s ability to handle the situation without violence, overlooked Aaron and Marta’s quiet agnosticism. The ceremony wasn’t much. Aaron and Marta didn’t have the money or desire for anything more extravagant. Some of the local women who Marta had doctored for free brought flowers and food for afterwards. The night before, one of the monks gave Aaron and Marta a crash course in Buddha’s advice to married couples and thoughts on the roles of husband and wife. He focused on the tenants of mutual respect, mutual honoring of the other, and faithfulness. Vagabonds they were, he told them not to worry about domesticity. That would come with time.

Marta wore a white sundress with cap sleeves Aaron bought from a vendor on the street. Aaron wore a US Army uniform with the proper chevrons for a private first class. He ‘borrowed’ it for the day from some soldiers on vacation. Their witnesses and guests were the people who lived in their rent-by-the-week apartment building. They were popular with their neighbors for their willingness to help out. It was a surprisingly robust crowd that stood in the shrine as the Venerable blessed their union.

They married under their real names and American passports. Aaron forged the embassy paperwork. After the blessing, they filled out the paperwork and left it with the temple to file. The reception was held on the rooftop of their apartment with their neighbors and some of the monks. The girls from next door wove a crown of flowers into Marta’s hair as she and Aaron sat at the head of the card table Aaron had dragged out of their apartment and up the stairs. Aaron wore a stupid, little boy grin as he held her hand and watched them.

There was dreamy sense of unreality about the scene of revelry. It was early July, but Indonesia was always hot. The air rippled even as the sun sank below the horizon leaving the roof lit by paper lamps and bare bulbs. Marta was sweating even in her light dress. She didn’t want to think about how sweltering Aaron’s borrowed uniform was. The men who could play instruments, regardless of the cultural origin, were doing their best to harmonize in jaunty tunes. Two women from the first floor sang along with them. The bird song melody drifted through the thick air.

Even though the apartment’s inhabitants weren’t wealthy, the potluck the women had thrown together was as much a feast as Thanksgiving in the Shearing household. As new bride and groom, Aaron and Marta were left to celebrate. Their landlady officiated in their place. Dressed in a bright yellow sari, she smiled toothlessly, embracing her role as hostess and stand-in mother for the newlyweds. Her wrinkled, brown hands were always warm when they touched Marta’s arm or threaded through Aaron’s hair.

Some of the older children rigged up sheets and lamps for an impromptu shadow puppet show. The little ones gathered around, cheering. Aaron dropped a quick kiss on Marta’s cheek. “I’m going to get out of this jacket, Doc. Don’t drink too much without me.”

She rolled her eyes at that. The legal drinking age was twenty-one, and the prevalence of Islam meant it was enforced about as staunchly as the United States. There were a couple bottles of arak gifted to Aaron by the men he did bodyguard work for and some beer Marta had bought the previous evening. Compared to Marta’s cousin’s wedding reception, the result was a party that bordered on sedate. “I’ll make sure to set aside some beer for you. Go. I’m hot just looking at you.”

With another kiss, and wicked little grin, Aaron headed for the stairs, calling over his shoulder, “You’re always hot, baby.”

“He will be a good husband,” their landlady reassured Marta when Aaron disappeared. “Very gentle but strong.” She patted Marta’s hand. “You children will have a good father.”

Marta murmured her thanks, absently pressing a hand against her flat stomach and feeling the muscle there. The evidence of the core strengthening exercises Aaron had her do as part of their hand-to-hand practice. She was over forty, even if she didn’t look it. Aaron was just twenty-seven . Children weren’t in their stars even if they hadn’t been international fugitives. “Thank you,” Marta finally decided to respond. “I’m just so happy he finally agreed.”

Their landlady laughed. Old as she was, she wasn’t blind. It had been Marta who was reluctant to stop living in sin. This marriage was for Aaron. The piece of paper and public recognition satisfied something in him. A desire for normality he’d been denied, Marta thought.

A firm kiss to the back of her neck halted the dark thoughts. “Back,” Aaron said unnecessarily as he slid into his seat. He’d exchanged the uniform for khaki cargo pants and a collared white linen shirt. As soon as he was seated Marta reached for his hand. He let her have what she wanted, holding his beer in his left.

Marta clasped his calloused hand like a charm against further awkward questions. Her fingers knew each ridge with a familiarity which left her aching when she couldn’t touch. The same hands she’d seen snap men’s necks and held guns like they were an extension of himself. Hands that taught her how to kill a man. A year ago, she’d flinched from the grip gently pressing her fingers together. Now, there was a slender, golden ring signifying the depth of their partnership

They almost ended before anything began. Marta was a good girl, an academic who’s most exciting memories involved drunken after parties at professional conferences. When they reached Malaysia, Aaron offered to set her up with a new life as a black market doctor. She took him up on it which was the beginning of the self-defense lessons. Someone with Marta’s level of training in medicine was valuable on the shady side of legal. No one wanted to cross a person they might need to save their life, but Aaron wanted her to be prepared.

The plan was for Marta to set up shop in a low rent apartment. Aaron forged the necessary papers to make her officially an expat with legal status to work as a doctor. The name on the papers was Martha June Munroe. With Aaron at her shoulder she’d started building the contacts to survive on her own. Even though they were no longer crammed into the same tiny cabin, Marta told Aaron they could continue sharing the bed. She’d gotten used to the reassuring bulk of him wrapped around her. It long ago mutated from a way to subvert an unconscious threat to an active comfort for her.

Not that Aaron had ever been as threatening as he should have been. Marta knew what he was trained for conceptually, but the theory didn’t match the sweet-eyed man who scuffed his foot like a little boy when she smiled at him, no matter how wan. Hillcott had always told her not to worry about Five. Five was obedient and easygoing. He liked his hair smoothed. A hand on his shoulder when he went under sedation made him pliable. Five was followed orders without question. The Colonel’s Dog, some of the less charitable staff had called him, twisting the affectionate nickname used in the breakroom. The Colonel’s Pup. Marta had used the reference herself with a laugh, not knowing exactly who the Colonel was. The Colonel’s Pup who always handled his samples with the attention they were due. The Colonel’s Dog who executed Two and derailed a thesis . (Poor Don. God knew what had gotten in his blood to make him into a monster. He’d been such a sweet man.)

Aaron had rescued her from NRAG. He’d bitten the hand that fed him, cared for him, then tried to put him down. She’d held him through his fever and the tears that came with it. Aaron was none of the things she’d known him as before. Not Five. Not a pet. Still, there was something in his easy silence which made her alternately grateful and irritable towards him.

She was torn when the time came for him to leave, but put up her shingle, metaphorically speaking, as she waved good-bye. It was a life. Not the one she had hoped for when she agreed to NRAG’s security contract, but she was learning that living was enough for her. She’d never claimed to be brave. Aaron left his gun with her to accompany the kiss he dropped on top of her head and his best wishes. It was brisk, brusque on her part, and she tried not to think hard enough about it to feel guilty. They wanted him, the evidence. Without Aaron to prove it, Marta was just another crazy if she tried to go public about the program.

Aaron had never been his own man before. Kenneth had spent all of his life in the care of the state of Nevada or the US Government. Aaron never left the structure of Outcome, the strict regimen of chems and blood draws even on missions. He’d never not had someone to answer to. It was a realization that hit him inopportunely in the middle of the street with his pack over his shoulder. He was a free man who had no idea what to do now that he had everything he’d fought for.

There were little powdery candies flavored with honey sold in every convenience store in Malaysia. Aaron popped one under his tongue. He’d been going through several of them a day. The solid press beneath his tongue was the best thing he’d found for suppressing the spikes of panic from remembering he hadn’t taken his chems. Marta called it substitution, like suckers for cigarettes. She’d warned him to watch his dependency on them for psychological relief. He figured he deserved some relief as he shifted his much lighter pack to his other shoulder. He’d only kept three grand of the Rasar’s money for himself. The rest had been burned to get them to Malaysia, setting up, Marta, and making sure she had a pad against any eventualities.

It was unlikely that NRAG would pursue Marta unless she did something to draw their attention. Unlike Aaron, who could take anything they could throw at him, her only defense was staying small and unthreatening. Byer would know Aaron had advised her against going public. They’d wait until Aaron was confirmed to be out of the equation before handling Marta. All he had to do was stay one step ahead of them, distract them, and she could live out her life in peace until the next regime change.

Clicking the candy against his front teeth, he walked away from the apartment building. It felt like abandoning his post, but Marta would be safer alone. Everyone was looking for two Americans, a man and a woman. Aaron fingered the passport tucked in his jacket, Canadian of course. It was risky, Byer knew he favored foreign passports when laying low, especially Canadian, but an American passport would attract more attention from any local customs officials.

His first laptop he’d left with Marta. For a hundred American he’d picked up a refurbished Acer which worked more often than not and had one of the better quality of pirated Windows OS’s installed. After wandering towards the center town, he realized that he’d need a plan before nightfall. The streets weren’t safe enough for sleep. If he didn’t find a place to stay or a way to leave, he’d have to walk all night. He was browsing for ticket prices to Tel Aviv in a café when he glanced up as adrenaline trickled into his system. It would be at least half of his money to get there. There was no reason for the sudden panic seizing his muscles.

Still, he closed the laptop and slipped it back into his backpack. He stayed with the crowds, loitering towards the apartment block he’d left Marta in. There were too many white faces moving the same direction as he was. Aaron cut away from the crowd into a back alley, scaling the wall and continue the rest of his way to Marta’s fourth story apartment over the roofs. Sure enough, pale faces were loitering at every ground floor exit. Aaron went through an open window and came face to face with the gun he’d given Marta. “They’re here,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.

Shakily exhaling, Marta nodded. “I’ll get my bag.” She grabbed the bug-out bag Aaron had shown her how to make from underneath the bed. Tightening the straps she asked, “How are we getting out?”

Aaron looked through the window which he’d used as an entrance. “They’ve got the bottom floor covered. We’re leaving the way I came.”

Marta looked out the window as well, swallowing hard. “Aaron, I’m not sure I can make that jump.”

“We don’t have a choice. I’ll go first.” Aaron hopped up into the window sill, steadying himself with one hand on the frame before pushing off. He hit the wall on the other side of the alley, sliding several feet before finding hand and foot holds. Jamming his boot into a large crack and forcing his hand into a small gap, curling his fingers to lock his hold in place, he held out a hand. “I’ll catch you. All you have to do is make it to me.”

More slowly, Marta climbed into the window, pointedly not looking down. “Aaron,” she said again. Her voice wavered high with fear.

“I’ll catch you, Marta,” Aaron said firmly. He pressed his free boot against the wall to provide support and friction against her weight. Marta coiled herself, eyes locking with Aaron’s, then sprang. He snagged her hand out of the air before she could feel the free fall. Grasped securely, she relaxed into the fall, bouncing her feet off the wall to kill her momentum. Aaron yanked her upwards on the rebound, enough for her to get a free hand looped around his shoulder and pull herself onto his back. She locked her arms and legs around him, molding herself to him as much as possible to keep him from unbalancing. “You secure?” Aaron wheezed as she settled.

“Yes,” Marta confirmed, knotting her fingers around the straps of his pack. Aaron started climbing. She clung like a monkey, trusting him to carry them both to safety.

They ended up running across the roofs again, hand in hand. Aaron managed to get them a bus to a rural border town. They walked into Thailand and slept in a tree. Marta just ignored Aaron when he suggested splitting up again. It was obvious she’d live longer with him by her side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm messing with Clint/Aaron's age from the Legacy movie here. He's a bit younger, but he's still got a whole 'nother life to live.


	47. It's a Nice Day to Start Again

Aaron had no explanation for how NRAG had found Marta. Instead, he turned to the Web to try to find news of a man who might be able to help them. But Jason Bourne was dead. The news devastated Aaron. He’d sat silently in front of the computer at the cyber café, but the tears came when they were safely in their motel room. 

Marta curled up on the bed and watched him strip. “I’m gonna shower,” Aaron said thickly. “You need the bathroom?” The tears were just a few streaks along his face and a leaky nose, but he looked devastated.

Marta shook her head. She’d never seen an expression of grief like that since her father had died. The worst part was how he refused to mourn in front of her. Instead, he retreated to the bathroom and started the shower. When the sharp tapping noise of water against porcelain was dulled by impacting flesh instead, the high-pitched noise of a wounded animal drifted from behind the door.

Aaron gasped and choked, coughing as he held his face up to the stream of hot water. Marta stayed in the other room at first. She buried her head beneath the pillows trying to block it out. She didn’t know how to help her gentle soldier. He was the one holding her together, not the other way around, but the noises didn’t stop. It sounded like Aaron was working himself up the longer he cried. Sometimes it was so easy to forget they’d cobbled him together out of targeted behavioral therapy and genetic manipulation. God only knew if anyone had every bothered to teach him to self-soothe or if it had always been provided for him, another leash to keep him in line.

The thought of him suffering without knowing how to stop drove her to her feet. She leaned against the thin plywood of the bathroom door and considered her options. Talking alone wouldn’t help. Maybe it was a holdover from Kenneth, but physical comforting was more effective than verbal comforting. That meant getting over her own awkwardness about being naked around him. There was no logical reason to get her last good pair of jeans soaking wet.

In the end, the knowledge that Aaron considered himself her partner on all levels won out over modesty. They were beyond leaving each other to cry alone like strangers. Especially when Aaron had held her through every one of her breakdowns from the Philippines to Johar Baru. She stripped, leaving her clothes in a careless pile before she opened the bathroom door. Steeling herself, she took a deep breath and stepped into the lukewarm spray. Aaron looked up at her through tear and water-stained, swollen, red eyes. He was startled enough to flinch back. “Doc?”

“Marta,” Marta corrected, sinking to her knees and gathering him into her arms. “Shh. Who is he?”

“He was…my friend,” Aaron said, sniffing. “He was also my first lover. The only real one. The others were just… a good time.”

Marta started a little. “You’re gay?” She blushed bright red. “I did not mean that the way it sounded.”  
With a wet laugh, Aaron tipped his head back against her shoulder. “No. I like both. I’m just more comfortable with men. It wasn’t until Outcome that I even socialized with women.”

Mentally flipping through what she’d seen of Aaron’s medical file pre-Outcome, Marta figured he’d had an institutional childhood before the army. It tracked that he wouldn’t have interacted with girls his own age often. “Tell me about… falling in love,” Marta said hesitantly. “If you want to.”

“Jason and I had a mission together. We trusted each other absolutely. It just seemed like a natural extension of trusting each other that much.” Aaron laughed wetly. “He was nice to me. I’d just killed my trainer on Byer’s orders. He used to glare at me for everything. He thought I was going to get myself killed horsing around.” Marta wasn’t sure what to say. One of the things that had driven her and Peter apart was his constant nitpicking. So she traced patterns in the water on Aaron’s chest. “We were doing field interrogations. Torture. It didn’t hurt him like it did me, but he fought to get both of us out of there anyways. They could have shot him for what he did. But he did it for me anyways.” Aaron looked pensively up at the ceiling. “At first, it was a ploy. So we could talk about things we shouldn’t. Then it was because they were going to split us up anyways, and I wanted him to have something they couldn’t take. Whoever owned him made the Colonel look like a goddamn saint. Memories were the only thing they didn’t take.”

“Treadstone was in our files,” Marta said softly. “I didn’t have the clearance to read them.”

Nodding, Aaron closed his eyes and tipped his face into the water to rinse away the snot. “Yeah. I figured something like that. Anyways, they took him the next day. He had to be drugged first. He was never stable enough to deal without violence.”

Marta closed her eyes and tried to imagine the scene. It was too easy. Aaron had left the article up on the laptop. So she even had a face to put on the unconscious body Aaron had watched carried away. She wondered if they’d strapped Aaron down to ensure he didn’t try to follow. In her mind, they did, because her partner would have followed if it had been her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into his hair. “I’m sorry he’s gone.”

“S’okay,” Aaron murmured back. “I’ve got you now. We’ll take care of each other.” He looked so earnest in her arms with his hair slicked back from the water running over them. There was scruff around his mouth and a nerve-wracking gentleness in his eyes. He had a soft mouth, pleasing to look at and smoothing the hard edges of features from craggy to boyish. Aaron was attractive. All of the Outcome assets had been physically pleasing from their faces to their athletic bodies. Marta had never thought too closely about why.

Guilt came knocking at the thought, her new best friend. She curved her body around his to let him hide his face in her neck. So she didn’t have to see the face she’d given Eric Byer to use.

They lay in the shower until Aaron’s fingers pruned. Marta was the one to turn off the water and force a towel into his hands. She dried her hair by the handful while he pulled down the sheets on the queen sized bed.  
The bed in the hotel was, by some miracle, clean enough Marta didn’t feel completely disgusted slipping between the sheets. Aaron pushed his back to her front, the little spoon. She wrapped her arms and around his chest, hooking her legs at the divot of his waist until he was half on top of her. It wasn’t real sleep, but Marta closed her eyes and pretended so Aaron wouldn’t feel obligated not to stare at her.

Eventually, he gently pushed her over onto her side so they were back to back. It still wasn’t a good night for dozing. Aaron was restless. Usually, he slept like the dead. Still enough that she had nightmares about waking up to find he’d stopped breathing. That the scapegrace genetics she’d forced on him had failed in the middle of the night. Tonight there was no doubting he was alive with ever damnable shift of his weight. She ended up propping a leg over his hips to keep him still enough for her to drift off.

It was disconcerting to wake up with arms around her. Marta flung an elbow at her bedmate, growling at Peter that she was sweating now, dammit. “Ouch,” Aaron said mildly as her elbow thunked into his cheek.

“Oh, shit,” Marta muttered turning over and staring at him blearily. There was a distinctly pinkish patch beneath his right eye that was going to be a black bruise before it healed. Aaron’s short hair was even more mussed than usual, and he looked like a three-legged puppy just given a solid kick. “I’m sorry.” She reached out and patted his head since no coffee appeared to help her find coherence.

Aaron flopped back with an expression Marta would have called a pout if she didn’t know what he was. Flushed beneath his tan from their shared heat, skin sticky-hot, it was the most inviting she’d ever seen him when healthy. Last time he’d looked this soft, the viral-out fever had been burning its way through his skin. Maybe it was the caffeine deprivation. Maybe it was the fact she knew Aaron had never been given enough affection. She leaned over and kissed him on the lips, just good morning, feather light.

A startled gasp gusted against her mouth. “Shh,” Marta said, rubbing small circles over Aaron’s pectoral to soothe him. “I am still half-asleep. Just let me enjoy this. It’s doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“But it can mean something?” Aaron asked hoarsely. “I kind of want it to mean something, Marta.”

She ran her fingers through his hair, sighing gustily, but forced herself to find the words. Maybe it was the fact she already used him to focus her thoughts which had her admitting, “It’s about trust and wanting, isn’t it? Well, I trust you. We’re partners. And I haven’t had sex in over a year. Right now, I’d tip you over and fall on your penis with legs spread if you said please.”

The bluntness startled a bark of laughter from Aaron. He looked up at her from his lashes. His eyes, usually pale, had darkened to the color slate. “Please?”

“Yes,” Marta said. She spread her fingers over his chest, feeling the muscles beneath shift and tense. The sheets were shoved to the side. She pressed her knees to his ribs, rolling him above her, shivering at the press of bare skin which only now felt naked. He slid down and back, far enough he could look at her. It was too unnerving for the hour.

The short buzz Aaron favored didn’t leave enough hair to grip. So she wrapped her free hand around back of his neck and guided his mouth down her palm, shivering at the whispery sensation of soft kisses. His teeth closed around her index finger and shook. The careful scraping sensations were bright sparks in her stomach, but it was the way he tilted his head to hold her gaze that made her gasp. She didn’t know why she’d been expecting something more animalistic from him. Just because he could break, had broken, men’s necks without hesitating didn’t mean he was a violent man.

“Come here,” Marta ordered, digging her short nails into the soft divot beneath the sternothyroidal muscle, the pair of muscles bordering the spine on the back of the neck. Aaron relaxed and let her drag his mouth up to kiss her again. He teased with his lips, dropping light kisses then pulling away until she tugged him down again. She narrowed her eyes at his small smirk. “If you don’t get to work, soldier, I’m going to do something drastic.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Aaron said with a trace of a western accent. Marta thought it might be his original way of speaking before his speech therapy. Sprawling out next to her, he went back to kissing her palm, working his way up her arm to her neck. Marta kept her hand on the back of his neck. Aaron liked the point of contact if the way he arched into her squeezing was any indication. The teeth playing across her neck and collarbones had her other hand scratching marks into his shoulder. She tried to be gentle, but Aaron was very insistent as he moved down to her breast. He didn’t seem to care every time he found just the right spot or lapped over a nipple her nails marked skin.

Marta was sure she had more control than this, but it had been a very long time. The eye contact Aaron held as he so gently bit down on the areola surrounding her nipple, not quite where she wanted, magnified the lightning in her blood. She wanted to hold down him and watch his eyes while she ran her nails and tongue over every inch of skin. As Aaron kissed his way down her stomach, she wrapped her legs around his chest to hold him still.  
“Okay,” Aaron said, nuzzling into her skin. “What do you want?”

Using part of a judo move Aaron had showed her, she rolled them so she was straddling his chest. Aaron was hanging half-way off the bed, but he didn’t seem to care. “Up.” Tugging imperiously on his shoulders, she shivered. His skin scrapped her inner thighs and labia as he pushed himself back up the bed with his elbows. 

Pushing a hand against the bed to support her weight, Marta ground down against his stomach in her own tease.  
She ended up straddling the solid breadth of his waist. Pinning his wrists playfully to the bed, she looked down at him. The body was his, trained and improved just by one and a half percent, but it was the clear intelligence in his eyes that raised the disquieting tingle in the base of her stomach. “Hey,” Aaron said softly, pushing himself up towards her. 

“Hey yourself,” Marta said nonsensically. She smiled and leaned down to kiss him, shaking off the uneasiness. He was his own person now. The lingering academic pride for her work was moot. So her fingers were anything but clinical as she traced lines where she knew there would have been scars on any other man. Aaron propped his head up on the pillow to watch her fingers move over his skin. A crooked little smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

“You do good work,” he said easily, turning to kiss her wrist.

Marta kissed him again to shut him up. He seemed to know what she was thinking, because he went quiet. He didn’t seem to mind being pinned. So she used it as an excuse to experiment, gauging how Aaron liked to be kissed. The clumsiness was disconcerting at first. Aaron was physically confident, unnervingly so, but he kissed like a teenage sweetheart. All clumsy tongue and soft lips with the occasional awkward touch of teeth. What was left of Marta’s reluctance crumbled away. Her grip on his wrists eased into a softer, playful tug pulling him in close. With a wicked little smile, he buried his face in her breasts, nipping softly, more lips than teeth, until she released his hands to pull him closer. Arms corded with heavy muscle draped over her back. It would have been smothering except for the delicate way calloused finger tips traced the wings of her shoulders.

Following the curve of her spine, one of Aaron’s hands traced down, over the line of her hip, lingering between them on her lower stomach. Blunt nails teased the soft skin just above the coarse hairs as he whispered, “May I?”

“Yes,” Marta said, hiding her face in his shoulder. Her hips canted forward. “Yes, Aaron.” He withdrew his hand. Her eyes went very wide as he slipped two fingers into his mouth. There was a flash of pink tongue just over the edge of his lip, worming between the digits to wet them both. She was looking at his eyes, still pale but no longer as colorless as she believed, when he slipped his fingers between her legs and began to massage in careful circles.

It had been so long. Marta was shaking at the first catch of callouses across damp flesh. She snugged one of her own hands behind his, showing him what she wanted until her vision showed a world sparking around the edges. When the stars finally faded into the grounding sensation of drying sweat and panting, she noticed that Aaron’s pupils were blown wide and black like an addict’s, jaw slack. She grinned and reached up to stroke his cheek. Her fingers left shiny streak over his stubble.

Aaron choked out a noise that made her shiver. “I don’t suppose you’ve got condoms? My pills are somewhere in the Philippines.”

“Sorry,” Aaron rasped. “Didn’t really see this coming.”

Marta laughed. It bubbled up out of her throat with the surge of hormone fueled happiness. “You wouldn’t know how to be presumptuous if someone wrote you instructions.” She slid down to bite patterns across his stomach. A hesitant hand cupped the back of her head. “You can pull my hair a bit. I like it.” Marta wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it happen, but the bright red blush spanned his checks down his chest.

She could always make him blush in bed. He’d had other lovers, she found out, but few. All of them had been like Aaron, preferring to communicate through the brush of a hand or gentle kiss. Words were something he still struggled with. It was probably for the best that their wedding night was in Indonesia where few people understood English. Cheap apartment walls were thin everywhere, and those who spoke English couldn’t look them in the eyes the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for vanishing. RL decided to send me walkabout. I'm still swamped. So I'm afraid posting times (and storyline quality :S) may dip.


	48. Vacation Down at the Gulf of Mexico

"Bu Mah-ta," called Utut, one of the children who played in the street near the apartment. He ran towards her with a gap-toothed smile, repeating his way of mangling her name. "Bu Mah-ta."

Marta stopped shifting her bag of groceries to her other hip. "Selamat pagi, Utut." She dug around in the bag for a plum to toss to him. "Is Aaron home yet?"

Utut's English wasn't great, but he knew Aaron's name and the gist of her hand gestures. He pointed south, towards the heart of the city, jabbering away. Marta smiled and patted his head before heading up the apartment. Aaron was still off at his day job, playing escort and bodyguard to rich European brats on vacation. It was a cash-only business that paid well enough to fund Marta's medical supply runs. While her patients paid what they could when they could, she and Aaron were living in a poor part of town and poverty was rampant. However, whenever official types came sniffing around, all he neighbors conveniently forgot the foreigners who lived upstairs.

The kitchen doubled as Marta's clinic. A long, sturdy metal table covered in newspaper was her exam table. The pantry stood in for a pharmacy, and her medical supplies were arranged in plastic containers on the counter . A battered kettle and porcelain basin sat in wait on the stove. She filled the kettle and started it on the boil for tea and hot water to clean with.

She left the apartment door propped open so everyone would know the doctor was in. Aaron had managed to find Twinings for her on his last grocery run. She made herself a cup of Earl Grey in a chipped mug. Sure enough, as soon as she started to inhale the steam, a laborer came in with a bad cut on his arm. She set her tea to the side and washed up to stitch him closed. By the time she was finished and had given him some amoxicillin to prevent complications, it was cold. She gulped it down quickly before scrubbing again to tend to an expectant mother. It went like that until Aaron came home. A steady stream of patients, some who had waited since last night to see her, sat on her table. She changed the newspaper between every one of them until she ran out. Then she just wiped it down with a mixture of water and bleach. It was a far cry from her lab and examination suite back in the states, but her new patients didn't seem to mind the facilities.

"Hey, Doc," Aaron called from the door where he kicked off his heavy work boots. "You get to the store?"

Marta finished taking the pulse of the toddler in her mother's arms before responding. "Yes, I did. I've got a patient. Be done in a moment." She rummaged through one of the boxes on the counter until she found a DTaP vaccine. Aaron had gotten the vaccines along with several other crates of medical supplies better suited for community nursing than the bullet wounds Marta had expected to be treating. She didn't ask where Aaron had gotten the supplies, trusting that he wouldn't have rerouted them from anyone who really needed them. The grateful mother soothed her child as Marta expertly stuck the girl with the vaccine.

"There," Marta said with a smile, sticking a bandage over the puncture wound. "All done. How's your English?"

"Okay," the mother said with a heavy accent.

"Good!" Marta said with an encouraging smile. "Now, if there's any pain or redness where she got the shot," she held up a picture laminated to an index card to illustrate, "come straight to me. Okay?"

The young mother nodded in understanding. "If here," she pointed to the bandage, "looks sick. Come back." 

"Yes," Marta nodded warmly. She patted the woman's shoulder. "I'll see you in six months."

Mother and child were escorted out by Aaron, giving Marta a moment to rest her feet. She started the kettle again before settling down and closing her eyes. Aaron didn't make any noise, but a warm mug was pressed into her hands as he leaned down for a kiss. "Long day?"

"Some of the mothers have started taking me seriously about preventative medicine," Marta said, weary but relieved. "I vaccinated and did wellness checks on twelve children today. Plus the usual work injuries."

"You're a saint," Aaron said with amusement, pressing a kiss to her cheek and moving to rub her shoulders. "I'll make dinner tonight. Nothing experimental, promise."

Marta smiled, eyes still shut. "Yes, please." She cooked for survival, because there had never been anyone else to do it for her. Aaron actually enjoyed the process and had a knack for the basics that Marta had earned through practice. Occasionally, his experiments failed spectacularly, but he always redeemed himself by going to get take-out. Marta couldn't remember the last time she'd been the one to make dinner. It was the sort of silent consideration for her and her work that Peter had never managed. She opened her eyes to sip her tea when she heard her husband start to wash vegetables.

He glanced over his shoulder after a moment, seeming to sense her frank appraisal of his bare shoulders and the way his jeans sat on his hips. Playfully, he turned back to the produce and shimmied a little. Marta couldn't help the smile creeping across her lips. She didn't mind marriage as much as she thought she would. Not the way Aaron interpreted his vows anyways. This was domesticity which didn't smother.

Aaron's payment for the day sat on the couch along with the jacket he intended to sew it into. Their bug-out bags were clearly visible under the table in the front hall. His shirt was already in the laundry, no doubt reeking of whatever vices his clients had preferred. She kicked off the soft shoes she wore when she had patients and wiggled her toes on the cool linoleum. There was a pleasant ache, pleasant now that she was sitting down, from her soles that spoke of a long day on her feet. With Aaron puttering around the kitchen, the scene was more soothing than the cup of tea she was sipping.

Dinner was plain, blanched vegetable salad, boiled egg slices, and tofu in a peanut sauce that was a favorite of the locals. Aaron cooked some rice for himself and piled on egg slices. Even though the only training he did these days was their morning run and teaching session, his metabolism still burned through calories at a disconcerting rate. To keep his food costs down, he supplemented heavily with rice fried in poultry fat given to them by grateful patients. Marta bit her lip when she saw his makeshift fried rice. In theory, the calories and extra protein were all he needed. His other nutrition requirements could be met my normal sized portions, but the long term studies on dietary requirements to support the Outcome modifications had been so controlled they were worthless in the real world. She'd tried to convince him to let her find a lab, run some tests, but it was too likely to draw the wrong kind of attention.

"My color's fine, light of my life," Aaron said with a fond smile as he carried the two plates to the living room where they usually ate. "And I don't think I'm coming down with scurvy." He set the plates on the crates they used as a coffee table before coming back to the kitchen for Marta.

"I spent all day examining patients. I can't help it," Marta sighed, putting her cup on the counter and leaning against him. She didn't really want to get up. Aaron crouched a little, wrapping his arms around her. "Thank you," Marta murmured into Aaron's neck as he lifted her in a bridal carry.

"All part of the service," Aaron replied with a kiss on top of her head. He carried her over to the couch, sitting so she landed on his lap. When she started to move to his side, he held her place by not immediately letting go. She tipped her head against his shoulder. "It's fine," he said softly. "I promise, Marta. We're going to be fine."

She kissed his throat over his pulse. "I know," she affirmed. "It's just… You're special, Aaron, and we don't know what that means in long run."

Aaron's grinned, boyish. "It means we're going to be fine. Now, eat your dinner. I slaved over a stove to feed you."

Marta rolled her eyes and slid off his lap. "You blanched vegetables using water from an electric kettle, and the sauce was from two days ago. There was no stove involved."

"It's the thought that counts," Aaron replied with a grin. Marta punched his shoulder affectionately before retrieving her plate.

Marta washed up after dinner. It was quick work since the meal was mostly leftovers. Then they settled in to listen to the KGI, the English radio station. Their news came from cyber-cafes, but it was still nice to end the evening listening to the Australian accented hosts help listeners practice their English. In the middle of a short story, the door to the apartment rattled. Aaron went still. "Go to the bedroom, get the shotgun," he said evenly. "There won't be that many them." He reached beneath the coach and pulled out the Ruger handgun he'd hidden there. The slide clicked back as he checked that it was loaded. "If any of them get past me, don't stop shooting until they’re dead."

Dinner sat nauseatingly heavy in Marta's stomach. She forced herself to walk to the bedroom and crouch on the far side of the bed. The shotgun was underneath her side. She picked it up and flipped of the safety before tucking it to her shoulder and aiming at the door.

Aaron pressed himself to wall at the side of the door. So when he swung open the flimsy piece of plywood with a knob on it the muzzle of his gun was aimed at anyone standing in doorway, and he was out of their line of fire. He dropped the muzzle of the gun at the floor. "Jesus Christ. Marta, baby, false alarm. It's a patient." He safed the gun and tucked it into the back of jeans. Opening the door all the way, he held up both hands midchest, palms out in a reassuring surrender. "Kau aman di sini. My wife's coming to help. Doktor akan datang."

Marta, shotgun hidden back under the bed, came to the door. "Oh, God," she said. "Come in, sweetheart. Ikuti saya." She helped the badly beaten woman across the threshold. "Aaron, water, towels, and a clean blanket for the baby."

Aaron obediently ducked into the bathroom to retrieve everything requested from the linen closet. While he was there, he hid the gun in the top drawer of the vanity. Marta helped the woman onto the table and carefully extracted the baby. "Aaron will take care of him," she assured the woman, passing the child into the blanket held over Aaron's waiting arms.

The woman squawked in protest, reaching out for the baby. "Kau aman di sini," Aaron repeated hurriedly. "Kau aman di sini. I'm not going to hurt him, sweetheart. Everything's fine." He carefully wrapped the blanket around the boy and settled into one of the kitchen chairs so the woman could see them both.

Marta pressed down on her patient's shoulders to keep the woman on the table. "It's fine. Kau aman di sini. Aaron and your boy are right there." It took several minutes to get the woman calm enough for Marta to do a quick, visual examination. "Did your… Damn. Aaron, what's the word for husband?"

"Suami," Aaron said absently as he soothed the baby.

"Suami?" Marta asked, pointing at the bruises on the woman's wrist. Her patient nodded, eyes darting away. "Damn." Taking a deep breath, Marta turned to Aaron. "I'll need you to use the blindfold. I think she's Muslim."

Aaron sighed and reached into the junk drawer to extract the blindfold he used when Marta was examining mothers of young children. Children tended to like Aaron, and he was more effective than a crib. Marta was popular with the local Muslim women since female doctors, while not unheard of, were not the norm. She was also virulently opposed to genital mutilation and blunt about it, reassuring young mothers who quietly wanted to defy the conservative bent slowly overtaking the country. To preserve the modesty of his wife's patients while keeping the children calm and within sight of their mothers, Aaron used a blindfold.

Marta's latest patient stared as Aaron pulled on the sleep mask and tied a rag over it. Then he settled back in the car to rock the baby quiet again. Marta scrubbed her hands and pulled on gloves before starting to pull glass out of the woman's face.

An hour and half later, Marta finished closing up the worst of the cuts and cleaning off the bruises. She washed her hands again as the woman covered her hair. "We're done," Marta told Aaron wearily. Aaron pulled off the blindfold and silently unwrapped the baby. He passed the child into the grateful mother's arms.

"I pay?" the woman asked insistently, reaching into a pocket.

"No. Tidak," Marta said, waving her off. "It's fine. You and your son be safe." She showed the woman to the door, leaning against it as it closed. A deep, shaky breath didn’t help with the furious adrenaline making her body shudder. "We can't stay here, Aaron. I'm going to end up punching someone in the face."

Aaron pulled her in close. "This from the woman who told me I couldn't follow everyone like her home and beat the shit out of their husbands." He carefully dug his fingers into the rock hard knots at the small of her back.

"It wouldn't help," Marta said, rubbing a hand over her face. "God, if it was only that easy. No, the only thing that'll help these women is a shift in the cultural paradigm." She buried her face in his shoulder, taking refuge the warm, solid safety he represented. "I love you. You know that?"

Aaron smiled into her hair. "I know, Doc. I'm a lucky man." He understood running. Marta didn’t unless she was fleeing for her life. It was too much like surrender for a woman who had out-smarted, out-talked, and intellectually intimidated her way to the top of her field. This was bitter battle lost to her, and Aaron wasn’t even sure he could disagree.

Marta bit off a broken laugh. "Oh, Aaron, you have the worst luck of any man I've ever known. You're just really good at winning against the odds."

"That's a contradiction," he said, leaning back to meet her eyes with a small smile, pushing some loose hair behind her ear as he tried to catch her eyes. “There’s no shame in being tired, sweetheart.”

Shaking her head, Marta couldn’t help the crooked smile that slipped over her lips. "Shut up." Then she kissed him. He immediately slid his hands down from small of her back to squeeze her ass. With an undignified squeak, she pulled back. "You asshole!" The insult was half-hearted though. She moved back into his hug immediately

Aaron sobered again, pressing a kiss to her temple and slowly rocking them back and forth. “I’ll get us tickets tonight. We’re ghosts this time tomorrow evening,” he promised. Somewhere the pressing fear of drawing attention wouldn’t force Marta to do nothing when she wanted to fight, and he didn’t have to watch his wife choked by their helplessness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed by the wonderful Julorean. I accidentally skipped posting a chapter. 46 is now the right 46. :( Sorry!


	49. Our Beds Are Burning

Australia was warm and something like familiar after the culture shock of Indonesia. Aaron lied about them being Canadian students abroad to pick up work under the table. They lucked out at a bar in Laverton, staying since the usual staff was swamped with a batch of miners fresh off work. The owner liked the looks of the two of them. He flirted outrageously with Marta without ever taking his eyes off Aaron’s ass.

Marta wasn’t sure she could ever be comfortable with it, but Aaron assured her their boss wasn’t going to do anything more than look. And even if he did, Marta was getting pretty good at tossing Aaron across the room. He’d actually been startled last time she snuck up on him. Working at the bar was an experience. Marta learned to dodge grabbing hands and how to quell a drunk twice her size with a glare. She’d never worked food service before, but it wasn’t so bad in the middle of nowhere with their regulars and Aaron nearby.

She chased Aaron through the Outback before their shifts. He always outpaced her, but somehow he managed to double back each time to catch her when she stumbled. The space suited him. He moved fluidly, not trying to mask his physicality with false hesitation. It was Marta's favorite excuse to tumble him to the ground like a teenager. Maybe it was the freedom to be themselves without the weight of supporting the community, but they fooled around like they really were college kids on vacation.

It was their fourth week in one place when they found trouble they couldn't dodge. It had been a good morning run. Aaron was tan and relaxed as he rinsed off the red dust that covered everything here in a half-assed shower which was really used to hose out beer kegs. Marta had washed up at the sink in their room, preferring not to risk an audience. She’d propped herself on some of the kegs of beer, folding napkins to fit in her apron.

Aaron cut off the cool water, shaking himself like a dog. Marta looked up with a smile, admiring his body with an easy feeling. The scars from the bullet wound he’d gotten in Manilla were gone. The only mark left on his back was the deep gouge from before Outcome. Marta had offered to remove it. She theorized that cutting away the old scar tissue would allow it to heal as cleanly as his other wounds, but Aaron had quietly and sadly refused. She didn’t press.

There was the soft clink and rattle of metal as Aaron pulled on his jeans, leaving his belt flopping. He cleared his throat pointedly. Biting her lip to hide her smile, Marta looked up. “Where’s my shirt, light of my life,” Aaron said with a fondly wry grin. He crossed his arms, but the effect was ruined by the water dripping down from his still wet hair. The water drops falling in his eyes left him looking more like a long-suffering teenager than a trained soldier.

“This?” Marta said, dangling his well worn grey t-shirt from her fingers.

“Yeah, that,” Aaron said, laughing as he walked forward, reaching out for it. Marta tugged it just out of reach. “Doc, really?”

“Come here.” Marta reached out her free hand until he stepped far enough forward she could pull him in by the ends of his belt. Aaron relaxed, shaking his head, but letting Marta move his arms through the sleeves and ducking his head into the collar. She pulled the shirt down over his torso. Then she slipped her hands beneath it to scratch affectionately over his abs. His chest was hot against her cheek as she leaned her face against his breastbone.

Heavy arms, he always felt heavier when he was relaxed, settled around her, pulling her in close. “I love you,” Aaron murmured as he pressed his lips to the part in her hair. Marta hadn’t even known she was looking for the reassurance, but it shouldn’t have surprised her. Aaron had forgiven her for Outcome. She still struggled with what she’d done to him. His lack of scars was a stark reminder.

“Hey, Chickie,” Ben, the legal bartender, said from the hallway leading to the bar. “Stop snogging your husband. We’ve got to get open before those blodgers outside break down the door.” He stuck his head in and made a shooing gesture. “Get.”

Marta rolled her eyes, but she let Aaron go. It was hard not to be fond of Ben. He was an Indigenous man in his early sixties who made pet names sound kind instead of condescending. Despite the bar’s owner being a creep, Ben made it bearable. He handled most of the day to day operations and had a soft spot for Aaron and Marta, saying Marta reminded him of his own wife, a nurse at the local clinic. Now, he just shook his head at them as Aaron stepped back to buckle his belt and toe on a pair of sneakers. “Kids these days,” the old barman muttered with a smile.

Marta hopped down off the barrel and tied on her apron. “We’re hardly children, Ben.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, heading for the front.

“Could have fooled me,” Ben replied as she walked past. “Go ahead and start taking the chairs down, Chickie. Boyo, I need you to tap another barrel of Fourex. Those Queenslanders are a thirsty lot.” Aaron nodded and went to go find gloves to handle the cold kegs.

The bar opened for lunch, manned only by a local woman who cooked and Ben, then closed until four when Marta and Aaron came to work the evening shift. The kitchen was open from four to seven, after which the only food was pre-packaged sandwiches and snacks. Marta stuck her head in the kitchen to say hello to Laurie, the cook, before pulling the chairs and stools down off the table. As she worked, the first batch of locals came in for an early supper.

After a month, Marta was no longer a novelty to the old men who came to gossip and drink. She’d faded into the landscape of the bar like the well-worn stools. They called her pet names as she took their orders and went right back to their card game. Aaron had finished setting up the kegs on tap and was helping Laurie in the kitchen. The miners were starting to trickle in and she and Ben were bustling to keep everyone’s glass full. It was shaping up to be a quiet but profitable night.

Right before the kitchen closed, Ben waved Marta off to go have dinner out back with Aaron. Laurie had made up some sandwiches for them before heading home to her elderly mother. Aaron had piled some carrot sticks and cold, roast pumpkin on a plate for ‘veg’ and set up shop on the empty beer crates the staff used for furniture. Ben had provided two half pints of bitter beer to go with their dinner. Marta balanced them next to the plate of sandwiches. She wrinkled her nose at the brown staining the edges of two of the sandwiches. “Tell me your Vegemite is not touching my lamb and cheese, Aaron.”

“Don’t worry, Doc. Laurie made yours first,” Aaron said, patting her shoulder reassuringly before picking up his beer.

Marta sat next to him, leaning into his side while she nibbled on her far less objectionable meal. While Aaron adored the salty brown tar masquerading as sandwich spread, she couldn’t see the culinary appeal. The high salt and vitamin B content in Vegemite made her suspect Aaron’s newfound enjoyment had something to do with his elevated nutritional requirements. He ate it with a spoon sometimes which was just disgusting to watch but reassuring his metabolism’s needs were being met .

They wolfed down the food and beer. Ben could handle himself with the crowd, but he tired faster than he was willing to admit. Marta left Aaron to take the dishes back to the kitchen, pulling her apron back on as she stepped back into the bar. Everything was still quiet – except for two tables in the corner where six men had settled with their backs to the wall. There was something about them which had Marta’s new instincts tingling as they laughed among themselves. Ben was loading up a tray with two pitchers and six pint glasses. “Is that for the boys in the back?” she asked as she refilled a regular’s drink.

“Sure thing, Chickie.” Ben looked up as he filled the second pitcher. “Is everything okay?”

“Have Aaron take it over,” Marta said softly, hiding her mouth as she spoke by getting fresh glasses for a table waving at the bar. “They’re… off somehow.”

Ben frowned but set the pitcher on the tray and ducked into the kitchen. He came out with a crate of fresh glasses and Aaron. Marta could have kissed the old man for the prop. She made her rounds with the fresh drinks as Aaron smoothly scooped up the tray and walked past the billiards tables towards the men.

Aaron could see what set Marta off as the six men who definitely weren’t miners watched him walk over. They were too alert. Their posture was a little too military, and they were all dead sober. He slumped his shoulders, hitching his right step like he’d had knee surgery when he was younger. Despite listening to Ben, Aaron didn’t trust his Australian accent to pass muster with the natives. So he went with his safest option. “’lo. You the boys who ordered the Fourex?” he said in the Canadian Prairie accent the Shue brothers had sported.

“Ta, mate,” the blond near the center said, waving at the table. “Just put it here.”

“That’ll be twenty-one dollars. We take cash as you go, or you can give us a credit card to open a tab. Tab has to be paid before you leave, house rules,” Aaron said cheerfully as he set down the tray and unloaded it. The blond did a quick collection and presented him with twenty two Australian dollars. Aaron took the tip with a nod and started back for the bar when another one of the men spoke up.

“You’re not from around here, mate.”

Aaron kept his shoulders low and his posture relaxed as he turned back. “No. I’m from Saskatchewan. Canada. My wife and I are taking a semester since we never got a real honeymoon. We wanted to go to Sydney, but here’s the most Australia we can afford.” He tipped his head over at Marta and smiled stupidly. She rolled her eyes at him.

“Congrats, mate,” the blond said raising his glass. One of the men, wiry with red hair, looked disappointed. “Many happy returns for you and the lady.”

“Thank you,” Aaron replied with the sort of dull brightness El Shue specialized in. People weren’t interested in nice and slightly dumb. “Just give a shout when you need fresh pitchers.”

Aaron stepped behind the bar to collect dirty glasses from Marta and load them into crates for washing. “They’re SAS, special forces,” he warned her softly. “They aren’t after us. We’re just two students from Canada on a shitty honeymoon.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “And I’m very protective of my lovely new wife around all these attractive men. So you stick to serving the regulars. We’ll be fine, Marta. Trust me.” She nodded, leaning over the bar to peck him on the lips like the soppy young lovers they were.

Ben didn’t ask why Aaron started covering the back of the room, but he kept up front with Marta. Aaron bounced sometimes when things got rowdy. The locals and the miners who listened to rumors knew not to start anything while he was around. If he thought someone might cause trouble, he stayed close as a preventative measure.

The soldiers didn’t seem to suspect anything either. Marta had caught some off color jokes from them that suggested they too believed Aaron was shepherding her away out of misplaced jealousy. It was rather presumptuous of them, as none were significantly more attractive than her husband, but she’d take the dismissal over more intent interest.

They were still in the clear as Ben called last round three hours later. The soldiers ordered their fourth pitcher. Marta hoped they were staying in town, because the thought of any of them behind the wheel was terrifying. Aaron lifted the tray holding their pitchers over the heads of some of the miners who were starting to perk up again with knowledge their alcohol was being cut off. One of Ben’s customers tried to order another scotch. Marta caught Ben’s soothing patter as he tried to convince the man there was such a thing as too much.

The miner was an unfamiliar face and obviously hadn’t heard the rumors about Ben’s new hired help. He shoved Ben, snapping out a racial slur that made Marta wince. Aaron was too far away to intimidate the miner back into line. Marta picked up an empty glass and moved to back up Ben in case the asshole’s friends started getting brave. Ben had his hands up, trying to talk the man down. It wasn’t working.

Marta gripped near the base of the glass to make sure it would shatter on impact. If she swung, she intended to take someone down. Aaron always told her she’d only get one shot. At her size, even a wounded man could take her down. Then the miner shoved Ben and everything went to hell, because even drunk, the asshole was fast. Marta’s glass only glanced him.

He grabbed her arm, shaking her like a terrier with a toy. Marta was dragged off her feet as she kicked out at her assailant to try and knock him loose. The toes of her sandals thudded uselessly against her shins. Her arm hurt fiercely. She wondered if it was broken, dizzy and sick from as her head whipped back and forth.

A hard, familiar body caught her, holding her fast against the teeth rattling jerks on her arm. Aaron’s hand was a blur. The miner staggered back under the force of the blow to his temple. Marta fell into her husband, gasping as her head spun with adrenaline and nausea. Aaron tucked to her back. She gripped his shirt tightly to move with him as he landed a blindingly quick snapkick to her assailant’s knee. The big man went down with a high pitched squeal of agony. Another swift turn nearly ripped the fabric from Marta’s fingers as Aaron smashed his elbow across the miner’s face to silence him.

“You do not touch my wife, you dicksuck motherfucker,” Aaron snarled, his tone violently military which meant that Kenneth was feeling angry and protective too. “Anyone else have something to fucking say?” he barked to the rest of the stunned room at large. “Fucking well say it now, or get the fuck out.” He wrapped an arm around Marta’s waist. His hand gently cupped the elbow of her aching arm, supporting it.

Wisely, the rest of the customers quietly started streaming out. The soldiers in the corner lingered as Aaron eased Marta down into a chair. “You did good, light of my life,” Aaron reassured her, gently manipulating her arm to check the extent of the damage. “If you’d been wearing boots, his shin would be broken.” Ben glanced over to check on them as he herded the slower moving drunks out the door. Aaron waved a little to let him know they were okay.

“It’s not broken,” Marta said. Her voice was strained like she’d been yelling. Maybe she had been. “But it hurts.”

Aaron carefully rolled up her sleeve to examine the red mark. “Mate,” the blond soldier said evenly. He approached with his hands raised slightly in surrender. “My sergeant here’s a medic. He’ll treat your wife, if you’d like.”

Marta nodded to Aaron, giving him permission to answer for her. “Okay. Thanks, buddy.” Aaron stepped back to let the slim, Asian man past. “You’ll need to leave after.”

“’A course,” the blond said with a smile that was bordering on mean. “After you tell us, what’re you going to uni for?” Aaron went stiff. He knew that he’d shown too much of his hand, crossing the room so quickly and fighting around Marta instead of pushing her out of the way. “I’ll buy she’s a student, but not you.”

Aaron pursed his lips. “That’s none of your damn business, and your bunch should know better than to ask, eh?”

“Juliet Tango Foxtrot two,” the blond guessed, more statement than question. Aaron didn’t deny it.

One of the other soldiers hissed to the man next to him, “Knew it. He’s too bloody nice to be a seppo.”

The medic finished prodding Marta’s arm, announcing, “Just strained. RICE it, and she’ll be apples.” He eased Marta’s arm down into her lap. “Deep breaths, pet. We’re all done here. Your husband can handle the rest.” He slapped Aaron’s arm lightly. “She’s fine, mate. A little shaken, but no permanent damage. No point in killing the dumb cunt. We’ll take out of the trash?

Aaron nodded slightly, like he was taking the medic’s advice into consideration. “Do it, before I kick his teeth down his throat.” He knelt next to Marta, laying a hand on her injured arm. “Then please get the fuck out of this bar. Because I’m going to break the neck of the next man to lay a hand on my wife.”

The soldiers grabbed the miner and dragged him out. Marta laid her hand on the back of Aaron’s neck, pulling his face to hers. “Aaron, no,” she said quietly. Maybe this was a long time coming, but Marta had never been threatened like this since they’d escaped. “I’m your wife, not your possession. You don’t threaten people like that for touching me. I’ll tell you if I need you to.”

Flushing, Aaron dropped his eyes, leaning his cheek against her leg. “I’m sorry, Doc. I didn’t mean to be a jackass. I’m just…”

“Scared. I know. It’s fine. Just don’t do it again,” Marta said softly, running her fingers through her hair as the last man left leaving them alone with Ben.

The old man locked the door behind the soldiers. “You’ll be leaving then?” he asked knowingly, dark eyes tired. “Let me get your pay.”

“Thank you,” Marta said, equally weary. “I don’t suppose we could impose on you for one more night?”

“Ah, chickie, it’d be better if we finished up here. You and your old man can stay with me and the missus tonight. She’s making a supply run tomorrow. So you can get some hot tucker down you in the morning and a safe way out of this town.” Ben started stacking chairs and wiping down tables. Aaron waved him off the chairs, flipping the seats onto the tables after Ben finished the wipe down. Marta steeled herself, cradling her arm close, as she started taking inventory behind the bar and closing out the till.

Ben did the bare minimum before shooing his two employees to gather their things from their loft in the storage shed out back of the bar. He’d known there was something odd about his two under the table employees, but they’d been more reliable than the staff he had on the books. The missus never could turn down a stray anyways.

Sure enough, when Ben drove his old rusty brown truck down the red dirt road to the house, the lights in the kitchen were yellow jewels against the dark of the Outback. Aaron jumped out of the bed first when Ben parked the truck. He lifted down the two duffels and a backpack then helped his wife down off the tailgate, steadying her so she didn’t have to use her arms. Ben’s wife came to the door to greet him, kissing him on the cheek with a raised eyebrow. “Got something hot for us, missus? We’re hungry.”

“I got something for you, Benjamin,” she said sternly as she stepped back to let her husband inside. “Tuckers on the table. Dig in. You too,” she said imperiously as the kids hung back. “There’s plenty. I went ahead and made up some sleeping pads in the sunroom for you tonight. There’s a sofa as well, but I always sleep better next to my old man. First aid kit’s on the table.”

“So do I,” the girl said with a small smile. “Thank you so much.” She kept a hand on her husband’s arm as he carried in their bags in.

“You can set your bags over there,” Delilah sighed. “Just… I don’t want to know anything. Eat, sleep. I’ll take you to town tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JTF2 (Joint Task Force 2) is the black ops of Canada. Thank Julorean this got out at all.


	50. Things I Forgot to Do

Aaron bought a junker of a motorbike at the edge the Western Territory after hitching a ride on coal truck from the town where Ben’s wife dropped them. They slept rough. Marta curled close to Aaron beneath the cold, clear skies. He found them passage on a fishing boat back to Asia. It was on the boat Marta caught a stomach bug she couldn't shake. The constant, low-grade nausea dogged her to Hanoi where Aaron finally convinced her to see a doctor.

"There's nothing wrong," Marta insisted irritably as Aaron puzzled out the paperwork for the small English speaking clinic he'd found. "It's just a bad reaction something I ate. I'm sure."

"Light of my life," Aaron sighed, voice strained, "you've been puking for almost three weeks straight. Just because you haven't been spiking a fever, doesn't mean there's not something wrong. And yes, I know you've got enough kinds of doctorates behind your name to put every doctor here to shame. But they know the local bugs." He finished neatly printing her vital information and passed it to her. "Did I get everything right?"

The question was a formality at this point. Marta knew Aaron down to his chromosomes. He'd been doing his best to learn her with the same degree of intimacy. They could fill out each other's paperwork, medical and visa, blindfolded. He'd circled 'CASH' under Method of Payment. "It's fine," Marta agreed, handing it back. Her fingers found his, curling their fingers together. They hadn't talked about how badly Aaron had been sleeping or the way he'd watched her every breath in the mornings. He was scared. Marta wasn't so certain herself, and Aaron was quietly terrified she was dying on him.

They held hands in the waiting room until the nurse called for 'Martha Shelley'. Aaron came with Marta to the exam room. They were actually wearing their wedding bands. Usually the rings lived sewn into Marta’s pack. They clinked softly as Aaron squeezed Marta's hand. The nurse took their paperwork and vitals then told Marta to strip down before closing the door to give her privacy. The clinic provided a paper dress as an attempt to preserve patient modesty. Marta stripped down to her panties and wrapped herself in the thin, stiff material, feeling awkward for the first time since she married Aaron. Aaron took her clothes and folded them before laying them on the chair.

Marta awkwardly lifted herself onto the exam table. Aaron leaned against the lip of the table. So Marta could huddle into the warmth of his body. The room was uncomfortably cool nearly naked. The doctor knocked on the door not five minutes later. Marta was just grateful they were better organized than American clinics where she could have waited for a half-hour. The doctor was a Vietnamese man with greying hair. He smiled at them as he closed the door. "Mrs. Shelley?"

"Yes," Marta replied, glancing at Aaron. Aaron nodded slightly. He thought this doctor was clean.

The doctor flipped quickly through the chart in his hand. "I'm Doctor Huynh Quang. Would you like your husband present during the examination?" 

"Yes," Marta said, reaching for Aaron's hand. "I'd prefer it."

With a calming smile, the doctor put his file down on counter and grabbed the rolling chair there. He moved it over so he was sitting across from them. "I see you’re in for bit a stomach bug, Mrs. Shelley. Could you describe your symptoms for me?"

Dr. Quang went through the familiar rigormole to find out when and where she got sick followed by a physical examination. He frowned a little and turned to Aaron after he was done. "Have you felt ill at all, Mr. Shelley?"

"No," Aaron shrugged. "But I've got a pretty sturdy immune system."

Quang nodded. He focused back on Marta. "I do not mean to be invasive, but do you use a birth control method, Mrs. Shelley? And is your menstruation regular?"

"Barrier method," Marta replied, slightly confused. "I don't react well to hormonal treatments, and I had my copper IUD removed… five years ago and never got it replaced. But we’ve always been careful. I haven’t ever been on a schedule. High stress, I think. Especially recently.”

Something seemed to click for Quang. "I'd like to do a quick blood test. I think you might be starting menopause. We've got an in house lab. So if I draw now, the results should be ready early tomorrow. You can come in first thing. Seven?"

"That’ll be fine," Marta agreed. Quang drew blood and left her to get dressed. She rested the urge to smack herself on the forward. Despite all her degrees, her experiences with endocrinology were not really geared for common problems.

Aaron leaned against the wall, finally relaxing. "Do you need drugs or something for menopause?"

"I might need to be careful about bone loss because of my size," Marta shrugged. "But the worst thing that’ll happen is I’ll get crazier than usual."

With shaking shoulders to prove how valiantly he was fighting a laugh, Aaron lifted her to her feet. “Crazy I can deal with, my love.” His arm remained around her waist, for once not tense with nerves. “There’s a tourist hotel down the street. We can stay there tonight.”

“Room service,” Marta muttered firmly as they paused at the office manager’s desk on their way out. “I’m too tired to deal with a crowd.” Aaron paid their bill for that day without taking his hand off her hip. The office manager smiled sympathetically at Marta. Her dark eyes lingered with a distant sort of warmth that said her mind was somewhere else entirely.

The hotel was nicer than the usual rattraps they hid at. All the staff spoke English and the halls and bar were packed with sunburned tourists. The desk actually made copies of the Canadian burner passports Aaron kept on hand to mock up with entry stamps to whatever country they needed clean, temporary identities. Most importantly, the hotel had an extensive room service menu that wasn’t prohibitively overpriced.

Marta kicked off her boots, which was a much more involved process of untying and loosening laces than when her life had permitted slip-ons. Aaron walked the room in a perimeter check as she tugged the band out of her hair. He finished clearing the bathroom before leaning against the wall to watch her strip down, wrinkling her nose at the smell of a long, sweaty, humid day. “Bath?” he suggested. “I’ll get food.”

“Tub’s big enough for two,” Marta agreed, glancing through the open door. The thought of finally soaking off the faint smell of sick that seemed ground into her skin was too appealing to ignore. “I want chicken, please.” She was fully submerged in warm water dozing to the sound of the rain on the windows by the time the food came. 

Quang entered the exam room the next morning with a frown that wasn’t in any way reassuring, "Mrs. Shelley, I'd like permission to do an expanded blood test. Your FSH and estradiol levels are fine. I'm having the technician rush it. We should have some conclusions shortly."

Aaron tensed, muscles humming again with as the strain he’d carried for the last week returned. Marta put her hand on his knee. "Go ahead." Quang nodded briskly and vanished again. Marta picked up one of the magazines in English, a tourists guide. She thumbed through it without really seeing any of the print until Quang came back.

The doctor grabbed his rolling chair again and moved back across from Aaron and Marta. "Mrs. Shelley, I have your blood tests results here. The good news is everything looks within healthy parameters. However, you've got elevated levels of hGH."

"I'm pregnant," Marta said. Her tongue felt numb. "Oh God." She was listing. “How?” She frantically thought back to Australia. Except things had been so dusty and dirty Aaron used his mouth more often than not. She’d started feeling ill on the boat. Maybe sea sickness running into morning sickness? The night they’d left the Western Territory. She hadn’t thought about how careless they been afterwards, holding her husband close long after he should have pulled out and cleaned up. They always used a condom. At her age, Marta had been sensible but not cautious. It was such an infinitesimally small chance.

Aaron caught her and held her close. "Breath, sweetheart. Breath. It's okay." He looked up at Quang. "What're our options here, Doc?"

"Well. If Mrs. Shelley wants to terminate, we know a reputable clinic which we can refer her to. Because of her age and the health problems it’s caused, it is a high risk pregnancy. They would get her in right away." Quang smiled reassuringly at Marta, trying to calm her. "If you wish to keep the pregnancy, we should start a pre-natal regime immediately."

"I need a moment," Marta said. Her voice was too high and breathy. "With my husband, please." She kept taking deep, measured breaths. The room was weaving in front of her vision.

"Of course." Quang stood. "Can I have a nurse bring you anything? Water? Soda? Some sugar would help the shock."

"We’ll be fine." Aaron replied, "Just give us some time, please. Thanks." He pulled Marta into a hard hug until Quang closed the door. "It's going to be okay, Doc. We'll get that referral and take care of this."

Marta wanted laugh, but she was still having trouble breathing. He didn't even hesitate to say exactly what she'd told him she wanted. Even though he couldn’t completely hide the longing in his eyes. A baby was another part of a life he wanted but had always been out of reach. Panic aside, Marta felt far less horror than she thought she would. Her world had shifted completely since Peter had left her alone in a house with holes in the floors. "Aaron, what are our options if I want to keep it?"

Aaron blinked. "Um… We move to a country without an extradition treaty and dull politics. Put down roots, buy deep cover identities. Do our best to disappear into other people. We'll have to move fast, before the baby also needed an ID. It's easier if the kid's papers are genuine." His eyes narrowed. "Or take a leap of faith and go to Israel. It's my kid. So the deal would cover you now."

"I'm not sure I trust the woman who trained you," Marta pointed, feeling calmer. She liked plans and options. "But you do. We'll go to Israel after this. I won't have child in a third world country without proper medical supervision." She paused, "If you want it of course."

With an expression that Marta couldn't quite decipher, Aaron murmured, "When Kenneth was at the state home, he used to think about what his life would be like after the military. They regulated what they watched pretty closely. Lots of old shows, Leave it Beaver, I Love Lucy, that kind of thing." He licked his lips. "All Kenneth ever wanted was a girl smarter than him who liked the uniform and wanted babies. All I want is you, but I got no objections to a kid even without a white picket fence.”

"Then we go Israel," Marta decided. "Find Quang. I'm going to need a crash course in this. Obstetrics was never my thing."

Quang gave Marta pamphlets and a list of supplements to take. Aaron told the doctor they were going back to Canada. So there was no need for follow up or an ultrasound to determine the age of the fetus. He told Marta he planned to have them in Israel within the month. A month wouldn’t make much difference in the care they could provide either way. Quang also had a laundry list of warnings for them which he recited while Marta made Aaron take notes. Marta was in good shape for her age, but she’d beaten the odds by getting pregnant. It would be an uphill battle to a healthy birth. He strongly suggested she find a midwife as soon as they got back to Saskatchewan. Marta almost felt a little bad about lying to him. 

Aaron paid the cashier in Dong again. Then he and Marta stopped by a drug store and purchased the supplements Quang suggested. He insisted she stock up. It would be a long, round about trip to Tel Aviv. They set up home base at a much cheaper motel, more appropriate for the long term. Aaron explained in grim, sharp words what he knew as they unpacked. “Byer knew the Rasar was up to something. That’s why he had me kill her. I wouldn’t be surprised if NRAG and the rest of alphabet soup keep eyes on Israel to try to stop me from reaching the Rasar’s contacts there.”

“But you have a plan,” Marta pointed out from the bed. “Don’t look at me like that. You’ve always got a plan.” She smiled at her husband.

Laughing, Aaron shrugged off the old memories. “I’m going to try to make contact first, and have us brought in by whoever the Rasar’s contact with Mossad is. Once we’ve made our deal, we’re safe. But not every intelligence operative in Israel is going to be on our side. We’ve got to make sure we’re dealing with the right ones.”

Marta reached up and hooked him by the waist of pants. She tugged him down on the bed so they were sprawled together. Aaron slid his hand up beneath her shirt to rest over her stomach. “I’ll always love you, Doc. Say when, and we’ll stop. But Israel only works with a baby. You’re a hot commodity to a lot of people. The only it’s worth the risk to whoever’s going to help us if we can tug enough heartstrings.”

“I didn’t want kids with Peter for a lot reasons,” Marta said bluntly. “He wanted a house and white picket fence, two point five kids with a dog. Mostly, he wanted me to take care of it. I saw how you looked when the doctor was talking. You want to raise our child.”

“Your kid,” Aaron corrected, leaning his head against her shoulder. “I want a chance to be a dad for your kid.”

“You want to be my housewife,” Marta said with an fond smirk as she rolled on top of him. “I’ve never known anyone who likes domesticity as much as you.” She kissed him.

He lifted his head to catch her lips a second time as she pulled away. “I never wanted to be a soldier. I’m just good at it. Kenneth always had the right idea about how to live.”

In the end, Aaron went old school. He sketched out the Hebrew words from the back of the Rasar’s photo of her and her lover which was still hidden in Virginia, then painstakingly looked up each character to type into his email. Marta was the recipient of several grateful kisses that evening. Since Aaron was certain he’d never have remembered the pattern of Hebrew letters without the improvements she made. Google translate informed him that the words were two names which didn’t translate well, a bizarre set of words that he assumed was a city, and something about an engagement.

He sent the caption to an Israeli newspaper that published in both English and Hebrew personal advertisements along with a message in English he was trying to find his mother from an old photograph. The number at the bottom of his ad belonged to a burner phone. He figured that the two names in combination with the location would only mean something to limited number of people. He didn’t imagine the Rasar’s background was well publicized even in Israel. Not after she’d been disowned so thoroughly Byer could have her killed without consequence. Using a stolen credit card number from a drill rigger who’d groped Marta, he paid for the ad to run a week.

Marta read over the ad before he sent it out. “Are you sure this is going work?” she asked, tapping the edge of the computer nervously.

“She didn’t leave anything else up to chance,” Aaron sighed. “I’m not going to start doubting her now. There weren’t precise instructions on how to get into contact with her people in Israel, but the photo this was on was from before she had her face altered. She wouldn’t have left it for me without a reason. I think the man who was with her in that picture is our contact.”

“Okay,” Marta said, reaching out to rub Aaron’s back. “Let’s do this.” With her other hand she sent the ad. “And now we wait?”

Aaron nodded. “And now we wait. I’ll pick up some work somewhere. This is Hanoi. Shouldn’t be too hard. I know you hate being domestic. Your best bet is to use those college credentials I mocked up to tutor ESL. We’ll check the postings online. Find somewhere less reputable that won’t ask questions when we vanish.”

Marta nodded. It would be a step down from doctoring people but still better than busing tables. They could use the money. They could always use more money. Running was an expensive proposition, Marta had discovered. Papers, one’s just good enough to cross borders in the third world, didn’t come cheap. Even though Aaron often only bought the materials and did the rest of the work himself. Guns also cost money since foreigners like them had to pay through the nose every time they needed to replace one. Then there were bribes for border guards and landlords and anyone else who they needed to keep quiet. Even though Aaron could make a fair bit of money on a single job, the jobs which paid well were the ones he didn’t want to talk about.

When Marta could find work as a doctor, it paid, but NRAG paid close attention to female doctors trying to keep a low profile these days. She took her pills, mostly vitamins but she had a prescription for anti-nausea meds as well, and settled down to job hunting on her laptop as Aaron moved around the room. “Are we getting an apartment this time?”

“No,” Aaron said, pausing by the bed to kiss her. “I’m just going to scout the area. They rent by the week. So we’re good for awhile. What do you want for dinner?”

Marta paused, rubbing her hand over her stomach. “Fish, I think. No cream sauces. I’m still feeling a bit off.” Aaron paused, glancing down at her stomach then very firmly looking away as he reminded himself not to act out of turn. “You may begin anthropomorphizing the parasitic cell mass,” Marta said magnanimously with a playful smile. “I’m okay with it being a baby, Aaron. Promise.”

“Okay,” Aaron sighed, relaxing. He reached out and cupped her stomach. She moved his hand a little until it was over her uterus. “I love you, Doc. Love you too, parasitic cell mass. Ease up on your mom.” He kissed Marta again with his hand on her belly. “So fish. I’ll be back soon.”

Marta patted his ass as he turned to leave. “Look at this way. You don’t need to bother with condoms while you’re out. Get more lube though. My hormones are going to start going crazy. There’s no such thing as too much lube when your body is making biochemical alterations on this scale.”

“Fish and lube,” Aaron repeated obediently. Marta nearly fell off the bed laughing as he darted out the door, tossing a mischievous smile over his shoulder at her.

Byer reached for the phone as it started a second round of ringing off the hook. Ignoring it the first time hadn’t worked. “Yes?” he snapped into the receiver.

Mandy ignored his snarl. “Outcome Five surfaced in rural Australia two days ago. He put a miner in the hospital for grabbing a woman he identified as his wife. She matches Shearing’s description.”

“What confirmation do we have it was him?” Byer asked, checking his inbox for the report.

“A squadron of Australian SAS was having a drink at the bar that evening. They say he identified himself as Joint Task Force Two and sounded Canadian. Langley contacted Canada. They didn’t deny or confirm of course, but they asked for a copy of the report.” Mandy sounded pleased as a cat with a canary. “There’s some other things too. Specifically, he used the bar’s satellite television to watch the NHL draft. Not surprising for a Canadian, but the manager said his team was the Flyers. He was cursing about Jeffy being traded. We’re opening a grid starting in that town to try to trace them.”

Jeff had been traded to the Wild after a second, rough season with the Flyers. No one was really surprised, but it was still disappointing. Aaron must have been keeping an eye on news from the Flyers and weighed the risk of confirming his friend had been traded. The fact he risked public exposure of his interest in the Flyers proved how close he still felt to Jeff, a bond which hadn’t been corrupted by the program.

Byer found the report and opened the file to scan it. “He won’t stay in Australia. They’ll run as fast as they can to avoid the attention this drew. Probably to Asia by boat to avoid customs. Do we know how they got into the country?”

Mandy shuffled through appendices to the report MI-6 had sent over. “Forged tourist visa. High quality. The Brits suspect they got the papers from Vietnamese sources already in the country. They were on stolen British passports, which is what got MI-6 interested in the first place. Five will have burned those already. MI-6 is checking all the passports leaving the country, but if they have found something, they haven’t told us yet.”

“Have someone do an analysis of all the countries within Aaron’s radius of travel, his past movements, and Shearing’s profile. Include the unconfirmed outliers as well, removing them systematically as the model progresses. Rank the countries in order of the probability they’d lay low there or whether they’d just use it as a jump-off point. Send out their photos, descriptions, and a security alert to every port city in the countries on that list.” Byer switched from the report to the weekly summary of terrorist activity compiled by the CIA for that week. “Let’s get their faces on top of the stack again. Tie them in with weapons purchases for terrorist organizations in South America. Rumor has it the cartels have started using international purchasers as part of their weapons dealing.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Mandy promised. “Also, Rick, the Aussie who reported the incident said the miner was drunk and tried to assault Shearing before Aaron got mean. He’s still stable, and it looks like the PTSD has gotten better.”

Byer paused, fingers lingering over his keyboard. It was hopeful that Aaron hadn’t fallen apart outside of Outcome and that he was still devoted to hockey, to Jeff. Enough time had passed there was a possibility of salvaging him. Byer’s main concern was Shearing. Aaron was too much of a romantic to call a woman his wife without some truth to it. He wondered what Shearing said to make the boy absolve her of her part in the program. Then again, Aaron had always preferred willful blindness to loneliness. His infatuation with Byer was prime evidence. Aaron could be salvaged given the right impetus. She couldn’t. They’d have to remove her from the equation. “That’s just going to make him harder to catch.”

Mandy muffled her disappointed sigh. She was losing patience with his worsening moods. “He’s back on the radar and managed to catch the attention of MI-6, ASIS, and CSIS as well as us. We’ll find him, Rick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ASIS and CSIS are the Australian and Canadian intelligence services respectively. This chapter was partially betaed by Julorean. Then I gutted it and did a read over myself. All remaining mistakes are mine.


	51. Our Work Contract's Out

Mikael’s heart nearly stopped when he saw the advert beneath the monthly check in from his American sources. It took draining his cup of pitch black tea to calm himself. The doctor had forbidden him from indulging in anymore coffee until his blood pressure went down. He wondered what the spy business was going to do when personal ads finally became obsolete. That day hadn’t come yet, and the online posting was there. It had been a very long time since he’d seen back of his engagement photo. His fiancée had taken it with her before the cause had consumed the woman. Still, he recognized the words like they were from a family photo kept on his desk. Her son was still alive.

Doyle had run when Ruth and the boy didn’t make the last flight that was supposed to be the fallback position. He made it out of the country on his real passport after NRAG burned all his aliases but with no information on the fate of the two people he’d tried to rescue. Knowing Doyle, the Brit had probably done some nosing around trying to find them. The fact he hadn’t found a trace of either Ruth or the son meant they never got out of the facility where they were being held. Until this advert, Mikael had been sure they were both dead.

The whole mission had been tenuous to begin with. David, director of Mossad, was newer than the generation that had burned Ruth and forced her to become Esther Landshuth to survive, but he was still reluctant to risk international attention to bring her home. Mikael suspected he might have tipped off NRAG, or at least, forced Ruth to expose herself somehow. Mossad was good about paying its debts but was just a happy to sweep them under the rug when justified. CI-5, a domestic anti-terrorist and organized crime prevention unit out of Britain, had provided the manpower and the faces on the ground in the US. David had provided the means.

The fact the Brits brought in a retired controller to run the extraction convinced Mikael they hadn’t let anything slip. Then again, CI-5 had the most honest agents with dirty hands Mikael could think of, why he’d gone to them rather than MI-6 in the first place. They would have held up their end of the bargain even if they’d known David was going to give them the information on the Syrians without follow through. If the boy was alive though, Doyle’s hell-raising as he left the country wasn’t in vain. Ruth must have found away to partially salvage the situation while her captors were distracted.

This wasn’t something Mikael could deal with at work. Most of the people who might be able to piece together what the ad was saying were dead, but the two most likely candidates, other than Mikael himself, worked down the hall and reported directly to David. If he started acting out of character, they wouldn’t stop digging until they found out why. He printed out a paper copy and circled his informant’s message. It was a risk, but everyone knew that Esther Landshuth was dead after a failed rescue attempt. And the pretty kibbutznikiyot he’d fallen in love had been written off when they were still children themselves.

“Ziva?” Mikael said, sticking his head into the hall as she passed. “I need you to check a phone number for me. International cell, pre-paid probably.” He paused. It was a risk, but sometimes hiding in plain sight was the best option. “It’s probably nothing, but it looks familiar.”

Ziva nodded, ducking her head to hide a scowl behind her dark hair. To Mikael, she was still just a girl finishing her office rotation. He knew she’d do better outside the stifling beige walls where she was alternately scorned and cosseted because of her last name. There was raw talent there beneath the bitterness she could never quite hide in a room full of people trained to read every subtly of human body language. Out in the field, she’d prove her value beyond question. Mikael was sure of that. “Yes, sir. I’ll send you the report this afternoon.”

Mikael smiled at her reassuringly. She didn’t yet have the weight of history to read into his request if the search turned up clean. If it didn’t, she was just rebellious enough to come to him first before telling her father. “And if I could trouble you for more tea?” Ziva nodded sharply and vanished down the hall. The mint tea he favored was kept premade in the staff room. He supplemented the concentrate with black tea and water from the kettle he kept in the corner. The battered K2 was a refugee from the era of the first safe electric kettles and Mikael’s grandmother’s prized possession. Not just as a discrete offensive weapon as some of his younger co-workers theorized. It used to make his fiancée smile whenever he cursed it in morning waiting on the water for their coffee.

He patted the kettle fondly as he settled back down at his desk. There was plenty of busy work to keep him occupied for the rest the day and out of the way of anyone who knew him well enough to see his nerves. By the time Ziva brought him his tea, he’d settled down to clean out the inbox on his computer. It would take far more than one day to sort through the mess, and it was a good excuse to hide since, like the other old men on the floor, technology was a new and often unpleasant challenge.

Ziva didn’t find anything remarkable about the phone number. It had been purchased with cash from a store in Hanoi and was registered to an oil rigger in Australia. The man himself was equally uninteresting. However, his mother of record was not the name he listed in his advert. Not that it meant anything. People’s pasts were always laced with little lies told by their parents and the people around them to hide ugly truths. Maybe some poor oil rigger had just discovered he was the product of his father’s youthful misadventures. Mikael’s gut didn’t agree with the most reasonable explanation. He did log his interest and note that no flags had been raised by further research.

On his way home from work, Mikael bought himself a bubble tea, a new fad, and stepped into the small electronics store next to it and bought an international cell with cash. He found a park bench to drink his bubble tea then dialed the number from the advertisement. A man picked up with a slight Australian accent. “’lo?”

“Hello,” Mikael said, thickening his own accent from the light touch he preferred to someone who only spoke English for business. “I am calling about your advertisement. I think I may know your mother.”

“Really? I mean, that’s wonderful mate. Can you tell me what it means? I have a picture of her. That was on the back.”

“It says ‘Ruth and Mikael in Netivot, Engaged September 1986’,” Mikael said, breathing through the lump in his throat. “Are you her son?”

The man hesitated then spoke flatly, an American then, faking an accent to match the credit card, “She was my mother, and she promised me a way out before they killed her.”

“Ah,” Mikael said, relaxing his own façade. “So she’s dead. How long?” He suspected as much when she hadn’t tried to make contact again. It still hurt to hear.

“She tried to get us out a few years ago. There isn’t a body. The people we were running from somehow found out,” the man actually sounded said and little lost. Maybe he really was Ruth’s son.

Mikael huffed out a short breath to cover the vague ache which had him rubbing at his chest as he spoke. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Aaron.” It was common but the sort of solid, Jewish name that would look good written beneath Ruth and Mikael. Aaron wasn’t the name on the records for the phone either. “She said I’d have a home in Israel if I needed it. I’ve got a wife with a baby on the way and a lot of people out for my blood. Is the offer still good?”

Ruth had a hell of way of calling in markers, but the deal she made stood despite her death. Mikael wasn’t a superstitious man, and he wouldn’t put it past her to return from death if he didn’t come through. “That depends, Aaron. This is not an easy thing.” The original plans had involved a single man and his mother, an enrollment in university, a deal with a prominent virologist, and the full support of Mossad. David wasn’t going to let Mikael try again for just the boy. “When the Brits tried to get you out, we had to hold off so your mother could secure medication for you. Is that still a factor?”

Aaron paused for a moment, then said, “My wife’s a doctor. She treated me. I don’t need the pills anymore. My mother left you a second part of the message.” He dutifully repeated the syllables, accenting them wrong but still understandable. It was a Shabbat blessing for a child, usually from father to son, but Aaron must not have had a father to give it to him. Mikael wasn’t sure if Aaron was faking his lack of understanding, but the pronunciations was so mangled he was inclined to believe the other man’s ignorance. Ruth wanted every part of Mikael’s heart breaking apparently. Probably to ensure he’d make a second attempt if it came to that. She was a wily bitch with her claws in a man’s heart.

“Obviously, you and your wife need to come home to have the baby.” Mikael smiled blankly out at the park. “Tokyo, eight days, ten in the morning local time. Locker 71 on the second floor lobby. You’ll need American passports, good ones, under the names Ruth and Michael Goldstein. There’ll be two tickets to Israel with associated paperwork. Be on that flight, and I’ll meet you on the other end. Miss that flight, and there’s nothing I can do to help you.” Once they were in the country, David wouldn’t kick them out. MIkael would have to retire as penance, but he’d made bigger sacrifices for lesser causes than meeting Ruth’s grandchild. “You’ll not be able to reach me after this. I’ll call you if something changes.”

“I understand,” Aaron said coolly. Mikael couldn’t tell of the bite of the syllables was really from Ruth or just wishful thinking. “There might be some problems with security?”

“Not if you get a Triad made passport. They’re pricey but good,” Mikael assured him. “It’s a risk, but I can’t get another full scale operation again. This is it if you want to come home.”

Silence on the other end of the line was reassuring in a way. Aaron was weighing the situation, factoring in the risk of exposure against his other options. Finally, he said, “My wife wants to go to Israel. So I guess that’s where we’re going.”

Mikael didn’t bother muffling his laugh. “You’re a wise man then,” he assured the boy. “A happy wife makes for a happy marriage. Eight days to Tokyo to make the flight. I will meet you in ten days when you land in Tel Aviv.”

“Ten days in Tel Aviv,” Aaron promised before hanging up.

Mikael calmly pulled the battery out of the phone. He dropped the battery in a trash can with his empty cup and the phone in a murky, decorative pond as he walked out of the park towards his apartment. In his head, he started a list of things he had ten days to buy, extra towels, more blankets, food. He’d been a bachelor for the better part of his life. His little apartment wasn’t equipped for the family who would be joining him until he could get them on their feet.

***

"Director Kramer," Fury growled into the phone. "To what do I owe this displeasure? If it's about Josephina and Inez, I'll have to remind you that you signed away all your parental rights. And Josephina has the full legal resources of SHIELD behind her as part of her employee benefits." Any man stupid enough to knock up an office administrator as capable and experienced as Josephina, and too cheap to pay her what she was worth in the first place, didn't deserve her. Josephina could organize a hurricane. Which was why she was currently in the basement trying to make heads or tails of Director Carter's private files.

Kramer was awkwardly silent on the other end of the line. Fury's mouth tugged up into a half-smirk. If the scrawny old bastard was going to call him and demand favors, it would be as uncomfortable for the man as possible. When he finally spoke, Fury could hear all the things Kramer was biting back. Kramer knew Fury liked to keep recordings of these conversations, and if any of those words in his head escaped, Fury would have them on tape for the world to hear. At his age, Kramer couldn't afford the scandal. So he spoke very carefully, "I know you've been trying to recruit a mechanic for your organization. There's an asset that just came back on the radar which might interest you."

"I'm listening." Fury didn't let his surprise leak through into his voice as he picked up a pen and opened the plain, black and white notebook that never left this office.

"One of Byer's boys went rogue after the Bourne scandal. It was low key. Never made the papers. He was Byer's personal wetwork man when he was active, and he was damn good at it." Kramer sounded far too satisfied for that to be the whole story.

Fury tapped his pen against the pad of paper. "He better not be Treadstone, Ezra. I don't need any of your pet sociopaths shitting on my carpets."

"Different program. Better results," Kramer promised. "The asset is completely stable. All side effects were… Incidental, unrelated to the program itself."

"See, Ezra, this is starting to sound like a free lunch. And everyone knows there's no such thing. What are you getting out this deal?" Fury made sure he sounded as amused as possible. He couldn't actually coldcock the man, no matter how deserved, but he could be as obnoxious as possible.

Kramer was grinding his teeth. Fury could still hear the scowl that was no doubt crumpling Kramer's face even more than usual. "Byer's planning on getting his boy back. I'd prefer if he didn't."

That made a twisted sort of sense. This was a vendetta. "Byer's a mean fuck, but he's smarter than you. And I like him better. If you fuck me over trying to fuck him over, well… Don't there, Ezra. Send me everything you have on your rogue asset through the usual channels. If this kid's worth anything, I'll give Byer a nasty present to remember you by without mentioning names."

Fury's deal was more than fair for what was obviously part of a larger political battle between NRAG and the CIA. "We'll be in touch," Kramer muttered, angry but not enough to risk souring Fury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another partially betaed chapter, because I can't seem to leave well enough alone. All the correct parts are thanks to Julorean. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> A kibbutznikiyot is a female member of a kibbutz, an Israeli collective community usually associated with farming. Landshuth began life on a kibbutz near Netivot. She and Mikael met during their term of compulsory military service. Another contest for a short of your choice if anyone can tell me who was Doyle's boss.
> 
> I'm starting to caught up on everything, but please be patient. RL took a turn for the swamped with no end in sight.


	52. Thought I Heard the Rumbling

"Shit." Aaron wiped his hands on his shirt. They left moist red streaks that soaked the gray fabric. "Marta, sweetheart, you still with me?" He patted the gun at his side to reassure himself it was still there. "Sweetheart?"

"Still here," Marta gasped, her fingers twitched into the folds of the bedspread Aaron had put between her and the tub to keep her more comfortable. "How's the bleeding?"

Aaron grimaced. "Not good. You need a hospital, my love." The white bedspread wasn't the best way to judge the amount of blood coming from between Marta's legs. Even a few spots looked like too much. There was enough liquid that it was puddling around her bare legs.

Marta tipped her head back against the edge of the tub. "We don't have that kind of money." Going outside now, with her covered in blood, would draw the attention of the men in dark jackets who had chased them from the airport, and a hospital was the only place she could go.

"We've got another option," Aaron said grimly. "It'll be messy though."

"We're not taking a hospital hostage, Aaron." Marta closed her eyes and took a deep breath as her vision wavered. She was bleeding to death. It was the twenty-first century, and she was going to die in the middle of a first world country of a miscarriage. If nothing else, Marta appreciated the irony.

Aaron leaned over the tub to press his forehead to her's. "Fuck." His voice was exhausted.

"Hold my hand and be my husband." Marta closed her eyes and gritted her teeth through another round of crippling cramps in her gut as she barked the orders. "Promise me you'll run when it's over. If you run, you can get away."

Aaron pressed her bloody knuckles to his mouth. "I'm sorry, Marta. I won't be your widower."

They'd been having a string of good luck too. The two clean passports good enough to get them into Japan had set them back most of their emergency funds. Aaron had helped Marta bleach her hair blonde, and she wore it tucked up to make it look shorter. Aaron had taken to calling her 'Marilyn', and she was regretting talking him through 'Some Like It Hot' when a dubbed version came on the local channel at their hotel.

The Triad-made passports had come with a caveat. The plane ticket from Hanoi to Tokyo, with the guarantee there would be no problems with customs, had cost Aaron a week of his services to the local Triad captain. Marta had bitten her tongue despite the bitter taste of playing obedient housewife and not asking why it took him twenty minutes to scrub the blood out from under his nails when he came home. Her online posts had netted her three sessions of tutoring which was plenty of food money for traveling. The rest of the time she'd spent reducing their already small number of belongings and selling everything didn't need to try to build back up their emergency funds. The day of their flight, Aaron even took Marta and their guns to his Triad contact and sold every weapon they had down to their knives. The smirking child only gave them twenty thousand yen for the duffle bag, but Aaron had put his hand on Marta's shoulder to keep her quiet.

By dinner that day, they'd been in Tokyo looking for a cheap tourist hotel. A sympathetic cab driver, who'd taken one look at Marta in her oversized cardigan huddling beneath Aaron's arm and immediately started babbling about his first son, found them a budget hotel within easy transportation range of the airport. Aaron thought they'd picked up their first tail on that cab ride.

The Public Security Intelligence Agency, Japan's answer to the CIA, was fairly low key relative to their Western cousins. Aaron hadn't even been aware he and Marta were on their radar. It wasn't until he hacked into SHIELD records he found out it was pure bad luck. NRAG had discretely pushed Marta and Aaron back up the watch lists after Australia. The social security number associated with Aaron's passport was already flagged due to an open identity theft case. A desk drone had been a little too aware and had located them on their flight from Hanoi.

Aaron hadn't spotted the tail initially. Tokyo was busy in a way Aaron hadn't dealt with before, and the woman who was on them was good. Losing her had meant renting a motel room then sneaking out the window to a different hotel to actually sleep. It was a stress their meager remaining funds didn't need, but they'd managed a solid night’s sleep together in a bed with questionable sheets.

The trap hadn't closed until Aaron had gone to the airport to retrieve their tickets. Marta's stomach had been protesting all the travel, and Aaron left her in the room to rest. When he'd returned, with their tickets in his bag, two men, both white, had been loitering at the end of the hotel hallway.

Aaron and Marta had tried to run again. Except every exit and the lobby had been packed with more men with guns. Marta had fallen back to give Aaron room to fight. He'd put down three of the men when a fourth came up behind her and put a gun to her head. The man who grabbed her had tried to talk Aaron down. Marta didn't think he would have actually hurt her, but it took more than four men to slow down her husband. It only took one to restrain Marta.

Aaron went berserk at the sight. None of the usual signs of imminent, painful violence for the sake of violence were obvious. He didn't say anything or froth at the mouth. His eyes were just very cold and focused. "Let my wife go."

"Easy, son," the other soldier said with surprising gentleness. "We just want to talk."

Hands curling and uncurling in loose fists, Aaron repeated without inflection, "Get your hands off my wife." Marta didn't see what happened next. With of a tip his head, Aaron caught her eye. She let herself go limp as he dropped his chin just like they'd practiced. Aaron covered the distance with preternatural speed. He'd pulled a knife off one of the men on the floor and put it through the throat of the soldier hanging onto Marta.

Aaron's hand clenched around Marta's upper arm and he dragged her away from the other soldier, throwing her out of the way. Marta lost her balance and tried to minimize the impact with a tuck and roll. She skidded across to the floor and hit the wall. Aaron was very nearly out of control if he misjudged his toss so badly. A sharp pain reverberated from Marta's shoulder where she'd impacted to her stomach which was clenching with adrenaline. She stayed curled in a defensive ball and kept still to make sure she was out from under Aaron's feet.

The knife went into the soldier's neck three more times before Aaron was satisfied. The only thing holding the man's head on was his spine. Aaron's vicious slashes had severed the soft tissues. With no sheath for the knife, he left it in the corpse. There was blood all over his both his hands. He'd used his free hand to hold the other man in place while he'd stabbed him. Wiping both his palms clean on his shirt, he knelt next to Marta. "Hey, Doc. I'm such a klutz. Completely fucked up that throw. You okay?"

"I stuck the landing. Don't worry." Marta wrapped her arms around her husband's neck and let him pull her to her feet. She grunted as her stomach clenched again. Aaron frowned, wrapping an arm around her waist to stabilize her. "I need to sit. Aaron, I need to sit." Marta huffed out several breaths as pain knifed through her back like the worse period cramps she'd ever had.

She felt the floor beneath her but barely any impact. Aaron's breath was brushing against her face. Between her legs was wet and hot, soaking her pants. "Oh no," she whispered. "Aaron, I can't run. The baby…"

"Shit." Aaron pressed his hand gently to Marta's stomach. "Stop giving your mom lip, kid. Both of you just hang on." He scooped her up in a bridal carry. "It'll be okay, light of my life. We'll pull back to room, regroup, and come up with a new plan." He stopped and leaned forward so Marta could grab one of the guns before heading for the stairs.

Maybe it was the blood loss, but Marta wouldn't let Aaron put her on the bed. "I'll ruin the mattress. Aaron, just put me in the tub."

"My darling wife, I'm not going to put you in the tub just to save a futon." Aaron shifted her weight like he was going to lay her down.

She slammed her fist into his arm in protest. "No. Look. Set me down in the bathroom. I need water. And put the duvet in the tub."

While Aaron filled the small bathtub with pillows and blankets, Marta downed cup after tiny plastic cup of water from the faucet. She had a feeling blood loss was going to be a major problem in the near future and did her best to at least hydrate herself before it set in.

"Who are they?" Marta asked quietly, doing her best to breathe through the stabbing cramps in her gut. "They can't be Byer's people. The one I tangled with didn't try to kill me."

Squeezing her hand, Aaron shrugged. "I got no idea, Doc. You're right, they're not NRAG. Hell, I'm not sure they're American. The bad news is, they want us alive." He walked into the bedroom and froze as he caught a flash of light on the building outside. Dropping into a crouch, he closed the curtains before crawling back into the bathroom. "So they've got all the exits locked down, and a sniper on the roof if we try to go out the window. Fuck, these guys are good, baby. Better than what NRAG could muster on short notice." He carefully helped her into the tub, supporting most of her weight with an arm around her waist.

Marta closed her eyes and inhaled shakily. "Do we have a plan?" Aaron barked out a harsh laugh. "Hush you." Marta swatted him, blowing out a series of careful breathes. "They'll have to come in after us. That's good. That's your advantage. We can't get out, but you can make them pay for cornering us." There were black spots dancing in her vision. Breathing was becoming an issue.

Aaron made another attempt to get through the hall. He was driven back by someone firing at the door. He tried two more times before just sitting at her side, holding her hand. There didn't seem to be another way out. He waited for her to pass out before steeling himself for his suicide run. This was the end of the line, and Aaron was going to make those bastards pay for dragging Marta into this.

After tucking the duvet tightly around his wife, he checked the clip in his gun. It was a Glock 42, thirteen round clip with one up the spout. Even if he made every shot a kill shot, there were at least twice as many men as he had bullets scattered throughout the hotel. He checked Marta's pulse one last time. It took him almost a minute to find it. Marta was barely breathing. "Okay," Aaron whispered, inhaling sharply. His checks were wet, and his vision was starting to blur. "Sleep tight, light of my life. I'll see you soon." He didn't say 'I love you.' As far as he was concerned, those were words for when they saw each other again. Abruptly, he stood up, pausing to press one more kiss to her slack mouth.

He opened the bathroom door and swept the room. Surprisingly, his meager barricade, built from the flimsy hotel furniture after his third attempt, was undisturbed. The room was empty. Tucking the gun into his waistband, he quietly started to move the pieces of cheap furniture out of the way. When the door was clear, he checked the hallway through the peephole. Everything in range of the peephole was empty as well.

He opened the door ready to shoot the men he expected to find just out of his field of vision. There was no one. Everything was too still, too quiet. They'd emptied the floor. A radio crackling from the end of the hall made Aaron jerk around. A plain black-cased tactical radio was set prominently on the floor six yards from the stairwell entrance. There was a white tag attached to it. Aaron leveled his gun and moved forward until he could see the tag. In black marker in English it read 'Pick me up.'

Aaron quickly scooped it up, keeping his eyes on the door to the stairwell. The radio sounded static again. They couldn't see him since they were still trying to get his attention. Aaron waited for them to turn the squelch back on. Then he pressed the button on the side. "I'm listening."

"Aaron Cross, right," a man replied in a conversational tone. "That's the name you prefer?"

"Aaron Shearing actually. I changed it when I got married," Aaron bit out. "Who are you?"

"That's immaterial, Mister Shearing," the other man said crisply. "What you need to know is I have an ambulance down here with paramedics ready to go for your wife. We saw you on the camera in the hallway. She's miscarrying isn't she?"

"Fuck you," Aaron snarled before he caught himself and breathed deeply to calm his tone. "What's that going to cost us?" he added evenly.

The radio didn't carry nonverbal vocalizations well, but Aaron thought the man hummed. "Well, Shearing, I'm here to offer you a job."

Aaron snorted. "I don't do that anymore, asshole. So I think I'm done talking."

"Have you ever heard of SHIELD?" The words weren't hurried, but the man on the other radio was insistent. He didn't want Aaron to stop talking.

"That's a fairytale. SHIELD didn't survive Margaret Carter's death. Too much political infighting," Aaron barked out. He'd liked the Peggy Carter stories the Rasar had told him when the nightmares wouldn't let him be, but they were just stories. Without Carter to hold an effort as idealistic as SHIELD together, it hadn't survived the fallout from Vietnam. Some conspiracy theorists still swore SHIELD had just gone underground, but they were the same people who claimed Chyornaya Vdova and Zimny Soldat were the same two people despite the sixty years of operations. 

The man countered, "Not quite, Shearing. We're still around and very interested in hiring you and your wife. She didn't look good. Say the word, and we'll get her to a hospital."

"I don't kill women or children, and I won't pull the trigger just because of orders," Aaron bargained. Even though he knew the man would say yes to everything. No promises would stand when they finally had Aaron in cuffs and a gun at Marta's head. But Marta was dying in the bathroom. Aaron could just hear the space between her shallow, harsh breaths from the hall.

"We'll talk terms after you're wife is being treated. I'm sending up the medics. Don't kill them." The other radio shut off. End of discussion apparently. The elevator dinged. Aaron jumped again. The medics must have been waiting on the floor just below for the go signal.

There were three medics, two big Caucasian men and a slender Japanese woman who was actually in charge. They rolled a gurney loaded with medical equipment out of the elevator. The Japanese woman barked out a demand in her native language. The blond man translated, "Where's the patient?"

"Follow me." Aaron put the gun back in his waistband. He sprinted to the bathroom, lifting Marta out of the tub with the duvet still wrapped around her. Her body was cool and limp in his arms. "Well, shit, blood's not his then," the red-headed man snapped with a thick Australian accent as they wheeled the gurney through the door.

"Get her on the bed," the female medic ordered. She shoved Aaron out of the way the minute Marta was fully on the mattress, tossing orders at her companions in Japanese. Aaron scrambled out of the way as the red-head ran an IV to Marta's left arm as the blond tried to find a vein in her right to do the same.

The blond looked up after he finally sunk the needle. "Do you know her blood type?"

"A-positive," Aaron replied quickly.

The red-head unearthed a cooler on the gurney and pulled out two bags of blood . "We just need to get her stable, so we can transport her to the hospital," the blond explained as he hooked up on the bags to the IV. "Mako, how's the bleeding coming?"

"She needs surgery," the woman replied grimly. "Get an oxygen mask on her. We're moving as soon as those lines start running."

Aaron didn't think anything of the two men stepping around him to check the door. The oxygen tank was still in the hall. So he wasn't expecting the red-head to grab him and expertly restrain him. Aaron kicked out, struggling to get to his gun, but even with Marta's alterations, the other man was big, tough, and well trained. "SAS," Aaron grunted as the blond wiped the side of his throat with alcohol. "Fuck."

"Ex-SAS," the red-head replied, voice strained as he held Aaron in place. "I work for SHIELD now. This is just a precaution. Agent Coulson doesn't want you getting frisky if your wife takes a turn for bad. Mate, for the love of Christ, jab him. He's stronger than he looks."

"Okay," the blond said, American or British, his accent was too muddled to tell. "This is going to knock you out pretty quickly. Just try to relax." He stuck the needle into Aaron's neck. "We'll take good care of your girl. If you promise to behave, we'll take you over so you can hold her hand."

Aaron gritted his teeth. "I'll behave. Let me see my wife."

The ex-SAS man helped him over to the opposite side of the bed from where the Japanese medic was still working. The blond slipped Aaron's hand into Marta's lax one despite his female companion clicking her tongue at him in disapproval. "Give it a rest," the blond told her, exasperated. "Poor fuck was just shanghaied into SHIELD. He needs her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the remarkable Julorean, who also chivvied me out of my slump with the patience of a saint.
> 
> Squelch is the circuit on a radio that suppresses the white noise when a transmission is not being received.
> 
> Chyornaya Vdova and Zimny Soldat are of course Black Widow and Winter Soldier.


	53. Long, Hard Times to Come

Maria Hill still wasn't used to her jumpsuit. It was tight and chafed where her fatigues had been worn soft. The gun on her hip didn't sit right without extra material folded down to pad the straps of her holster. She missed the camouflage of her one size too big standard grey t-shirt and jacket. Maria knew she was beautiful. Men had been telling her that long before she was even grown.

The Marines had been refuge in a way. They'd cut off Maria's hair and a sympathetic supply officer had always given her tops a little too large. She'd lucked into a commanding officer with a sister in EOD. She had been an MP in Afghanistan and Iraq and made Captain before it all went to hell. It had been the Major who'd gotten her into SHIELD. She owed it to him not fail again. Even if the SHIELD uniform put on display everything her fatigues had tried to hide.

"Agent Hill," one of the civilian administrators who kept SHIELD moving forward smiled and waved. Sighing, Maria walked over to the man's desk. "Sorry, ma'am, Director Fury wants you to meet him in the launch bay. Your radio is muted."

"Shit." Maria reached up and flicked her earpiece back on. "Sorry, sir. To much chatter to think. I'm on my way." She nodded her thanks to the admin, who just smiled sympathetically back.

Barney Barton was, of course, already standing by the quinjet. Smug bastard wore the black fatigue uniform of an enforcement agent instead of the standard jumpsuit. Maria had tried to don the same, but Fury had given her the position of assistant director. Barton was head of the enforcement arm and got the uniform to go with it. So she was stuck in a catsuit. And Barton used it an excuse to eyeball her until she felt slimy and homicidal.

"You had your radio off again." He smirked. Maria wanted to punch it off his face. In a sudden fit of sympathy, he sighed. "Look, the only way you're going to get used to interpreting the chatter is if you practice. You'll never get used to it if you don't keep it on all the time. Even when you think if one more person makes a pun, you're going to hunt them down and shoot them." Maria's eyebrow shot up before she could stop it. "His name is Petrov, and he works in cryptography in case you ever do crack and decide to save the rest of us the trouble."

"I'll keep that in mind," Maria replied archly. Anything else she could have said was stymied by the arrival of Director Fury himself. She still wasn't quite used to her new boss. The major had been an affable man, clever and with the sort of good humor and cool head required to successfully keep the peace in a war zone. He'd kept control of the war-battered men and women under his protection with an air of paternal affection that meant a disapproving glare could break up most fights without any MPs stepping in.

Fury's glare had separated brawling agents before, but there was nothing paternal about the man. Fury didn't care what drove his people to each other's throats. No one knocked on his office door to talk about interpersonal problems before they became public fights. His agents were interchangeable. Their only value to him was how skilled they were at their jobs. Every time Maria had to report to Fury, she hated the blue-blooded little fuck who'd nearly gotten her dishonorably discharged even more.

"Hill, Barton," Fury said briskly as he strode down the walkway to the quinjet. "We've got a new recruit. Agent Coulson's transporting them to international waters right now."

"International waters, sir?" Maria asked cautiously as they boarded.

"We need them on sovereign US territory to arrest them, Hill. Otherwise, you can deal with the Japanese government." Fury boarded and strapped himself into the center seat. Barton took the seat to his left immediately, leaving Maria in the aisle seat. She didn't bother protesting. Of all the slights Barton threw at her, seating arrangements were the least. Fury finally passed out the dossiers. "Aaron Shearing, if the rumors are true. Nee Cross. Born Kenneth James Kitsom in Reno, Nevada. His last intelligence test done at age seventeen while he was still in the system clocked an IQ at fifty even."

Maria flipped forward in the report to the assessment of Aaron Shearing. "That can't be right. His last assessment before he left NRAG put him in MENSA ."

"He's a graduate of one of Eric Byer's 'research' programs," Fury said spitting out the word like it tasted bad. "The National Research Assay Group has come the closest to recreating super soldiers. Jason Bourne, from the CIA fiasco, was one of theirs. Aaron Shearing is the last surviving asset from a program they liquidated. We don't have an exact kill count for him, but our best estimate is over two dozen."

Barton rustled frantically through the pages. "You're shitting me. This guy racked up four kills in two days in fucking Iraq. That's not human."

"There's a good chance Mister Shearing isn't," Fury said with a dark smile. "Aaron Shearing married Doctor Marta Shearing sometime in the last two years. She's where it gets interesting. Doctor Shearing is an MD and PhD, with a fellowship in virology and genetics. She was one of the senior research staff employed by Byer. And she's never been on call with the CDC."

"Genetic modification on human subjects using viruses," Maria breathed. "Holy shit. That's three kinds of illegal, not to mention a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions if they didn’t obtain consent." Barton snorted. "No consent then." Maria swallowed, her stomach clenching for more reasons than the Quinjet hitting a rough patch. "We're recruiting both of them?"

Fury shot her an incredulous look complete with his good eyebrow raised. "Barton, you'll take the husband to the Arizona compound. The doctor will be coming with us to New York. Both of them are flight risks. So consider it your problem if he disappears."

Barton let out a low whistle as he paused on another stack of folders in his dossier. "Easier said than done, sir. Who the fuck trained this kid?"

"The records have a couple of ex-SpecOps instructors as his primaries," Fury said coolly. "Rumor has it, Byer managed to get his hands on Rav samal rishon Esther Landshuth long enough for her turn out one last student."

"No wonder Byer couldn't handle him." Barton closed the file and leaned around Fury to speak to Maria. "Landshuth's an Israeli, but she got kicked out after a couple of very public assassinations. Since then, she's been training soldiers and spies for money. We're talking Taskmaster, Paladin, and Sentry. Rumor has it she gave US Agent and Frank Castle a few pointers as well. You haven't have run across any of her work before, Hill. Or you wouldn't be here."

Maria smiled back at him, all teeth. "I've crossed paths with Tony Masters before. If there's another one like him, then you do have problem." Masters had tried to slip out of the brig on Maria's watch. Tried. He'd gone down hard, and Maria still had the scar on her leg from the butterknife he'd gotten a hold of. That threw Barton for a loop. He leaned back in his seat, gears visibly turning behind his eyes as he tried to place where she'd come in contact with Taskmaster.

The mystery kept him busy, and Maria free to study the dossier, until the Quinjet was setting down on the aircraft carrier. The head of SHIELD's Tokyo division was waiting for them. "Director Fury," Assistant Director Pentecost didn't salute, but it was implied in the way he held himself. He'd been SHIELD for almost as long as Fury himself. His RAF roots still showed.

"Stacker ," Fury said, shaking the other man's hand. "Good to see you. Are the packages secure?"

"Doctor Shearing's not doing well, I'm afraid. Agent Coulson had her taken immediately to the infirmary. Coulson’s on an emergency call, unfortunately. He sends his regards. We've kept the husband in the room with her under light sedation." Pentecost gestured for Hill and Barton to join them. "The Hansens are standing guard on Mister Shearing since sedatives seem to only be somewhat effective ."

"Did Mister Shearing put up a fight?" Fury inquired he followed Pentecost down the narrow grey staircase. Four sets of boots against the steel grating made it hard to hear in the narrow passage.

Pentecost sighed. "Three casualties. Another injured. One of the men made the mistake of trying to leverage Doctor Shearing against her husband. He reacted violently."

Fury frowned. "About what we expected?"

Pushing open a door that didn't lead to the infirmary, Pentecost sighed. "Worse, I'm afraid. There's a better than likely chance Doctor Shearing won't recover. At that point, I believe the kindest thing for the husband would be a bullet. He’ll be too unstable without her."

"I'll take your assessment into consideration, Stacker." Fury walked forward to the wall of one way glass. On the other side, in a stripped down infirmary room, a pair of red-headed men with identical wolfish smiles despite the two decades age difference were playing cards with half an eye on the two bodies in the hospital bed. Next to her husband, Doctor Shearing looked like she was already dead. Her skin was white and her cheeks gaunt. Aaron Shearing was completely limp. It was obvious he'd been heavily drugged from the awkward angle of his body which had been propped around his wife.

Pentecost buzzed the room over the intercom. "Agent Hansen." Both of the red-heads looked towards the glass. The older man reached over and pressed down on the young soldier's shoulder. It was too affectionate for a warning but too obvious to be anything else. "Yes, sir?" the older man barked out.

"Director Fury is here. Get Mister Shearing ready for a discussion." Pentecost stepped away from the intercom, bringing his hands behind his back in the at-ease position.

The Hansens set their cards aside. The younger man didn't look happy with the orders, but he nodded as the other agent murmured to him. In the end it was easy. The younger agent put a pointed hand on Doctor Shearing's throat while his partnered levered up her husband and handcuffed the drugged man to one of the steel chairs bolted to the floor. Once the cuffs had been snapped shut, the younger man returned to sit at the metal table in the corner and picked up his cards. His partner joined him as Pentecost escorted Fury into the room.

Maria ended up close enough in the claustrophobic room to see the silent, loaded glances the two agents on guard were shooting each other over their cards. The younger's sneer was pure venom, spread indiscriminately across everyone but Pentecost. It was still easier to stand than the weariness and obvious pity for SHIELD's prisoners the older agent didn't bother to hide. For once, Maria didn't want her discomfiture with the whole situation validated.

"Shearing," Fury tapped the cuffed man's cheek to make sure he had the prisoner's attention. "Wake up, son. You've got some decisions to make."

"Wrong Shearing," Mister Shearing grunted, looking up at Fury with glassy eyes. "You'll have to wait for my wife to wake up." He smiled coldly making all the agents except Fury reach for their sidearms. 

"It's not your wife I'm interested in." Fury looked over at the bed and added offhandedly, "Right now it's only fifty-fifty she's going to make it. How hard we try to improve those odds depends on you." Shearing looked shocked, his eyes darting back to the bed. "Unlike you, Shearing, I don't have a lot of sympathy for doctors who flout the Geneva Conventions to further their research. Doctor Shearing isn't any better than the war criminals Eric Byer had you executing. No one's going to mourn her passing."

Shearing snarled, lunging clumsily against his cuffs. "Fuck you."

Fury didn't look impressed even though Maria could hear the squeaking strain of metal as the bolts were nearly pulled from the floor. The Hansens sat up straighter, glancing over. Fury waved them off. "The fact of the matter is your wife would be tried and convicted of crimes against humanity in any court in first world these days. So, Mister Shearing, you and I can make a deal. Or I can walk away and let the rest of the world sort out what to do with you and your lovely wife."

"What do you want from me?" Maria winced at how broken the man sounded, like the men who'd only wanted a bullet rather than take their damage home.

"I want you to work for me," Fury said coolly, like this was any other recruit. "SHIELD could use a man of your talents."

Shearing stared down at his boots, his teeth were still bared but his body was limp. "And if I agree you leave my wife out of this?"

Fury shrugged. "I can't release her back into the wild, Shearing. She's too dangerous to be left unsupervised. But I can tuck her away in a quiet lab somewhere. Out of the line of fire. "

"Okay." Shearing looked up, beaten but still furious. "Okay. I'll be your attack dog. I'll follow your orders. I'll call you sir. But Marta gets taken care of, not tossed into a cell somewhere and let out once a day. She gets a job, a new home, and a salary to take care of herself."

"I'm noticing you didn't include yourself in there, soldier," Fury observed wryly.

Shearing choked out a laugh that was mostly a growl. "I'm a dumb grunt, not stupid, sir. You won't let me see her again. All I'm going to get is enough proof she's safe to keep me from going off the reservation."

"Hmm." Fury smiled unpleasantly, good eye watching Shearing much more carefully. "Do your job well, and we might be able to work out conjugal visits."

With a burst of speed that had Maria gripping the butt of her pistol, Shearing actually managed to stand enough to lift himself off the chair. His arms were strained in uncomfortably straight lines against the cuffs. "Don't lie to me. I'll kill for you. I'll die doing your dirty work. But don't you fucking lie to me, sir. You've got me by the balls, but I can still be difficult if you keep me in the dark and feed me shit instead of letting me do what I'm good at."

Fury considered the smaller man with something like respect. "I think we have a deal. Uncuff him so he can say goodbye to Doctor Shearing, Barton."

Barton took the handcuff keys from the older Hansen. The younger partner walked back over bed where Dr. Shearing was unconscious. He pulled his sidearm from his holster and held it pointedly at his side. If Shearing tried to fight his way out, the red-head would shoot the woman.

Shearing rubbed his wrists after Barton released him. He didn't glare or snarl anymore. Stiffly, he sat back down next to his wife. He glanced around at all the observers uncomfortably before pushing her dark hair out of her face and kissing her forehead and lips. He whispered in her ear. Maria only caught the last part when he stood back up, his hand cupping his wife's head in a lingering caress, "Za la ta sara meena kawom, meerman." The words were accentless. So perfectly foreign Maria shivered and could smell the dirt and camel shit she'd left behind. Shearing walked up to Fury. Close enough to be uncomfortable but not so close it was a threat. "Orders, sir?" he said neutrally.

With a shiny white smile that made Maria’s back itch, Fury replied, "Agent Barton here is going to transport you to your assessment. He's your training officer for the duration. Welcome to SHIELD, Agent Shearing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Za la ta sara meena kawom, meerman.' is Pashto, meaning 'I love you, my wife.'
> 
> Beta'ed by Julorean.


	54. Please Don't Wake Me Up

Marta woke up. She blinked her eyes, staring up at the fluorescents and wondered if her years of quiet atheism were for naught. Then a nurse leaned over her and asked, “Doctor Shearing, are you awake?”

“Yessh,” Marta slurred hoarsely. “Aaron?”

The nurse gave her look so full of pity, Marta nearly closed her eyes again. “Let me get you some ice chips, Doctor.” She checked Marta’s IV then patted her hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Marta thought about sitting up. She started to press her hands to the bed and push. The medical restraints brought her up short. “Oh no.” Her voice was so strained it wasn’t even a whisper. “Oh no.” She felt kitten weak, arms limp and legs too heavy, but she struggled against the restraints.

The nurse returned with a Styrofoam cup and plastic spoon. When she saw Marta writhing, she hurried over in a flutter of mint green scrubs. “Doctor Shearing. Doctor Shearing, I need you to calm down. The restraints are just a precaution. Doctor Shearing, I need you to look at me.”

She was good. Marta would give her that. The patter of her words was soothing without being patronizing. The nurse was trying to hold Marta’s gaze. Marta exhaled slowly and met her eyes, forcing herself to stop struggling. “Why am I being restrained?” she whispered, displeased with how shaky her voice was. “Four point isn’t good for the baby.”

“Here, Doctor, have some ice chips,” the nurse quickly interrupted, feeding her several tiny spoonfuls. She watched Marta carefully to make sure each mouthful melted down before offering more. “The doctor will be here in a few minutes. She won’t be able to answer any questions about your husband, I’m afraid. Medical staff aren’t privy to non-medical details in these situations.”

“I understand,” Marta said, less roughly and with more strength now that her throat wasn’t completely parched. “Can you at least tell me why I’m in restraints. Four point is not advisable for pregnant women.”

“No, it’s not,” the nurse agreed gently. “I’m sorry to tell you, Doctor Shearing. You suffered a placental abruption. The doctor preformed a C-section since we weren’t sure how far along you were. The fetus wasn’t viable.”

Marta closed her eyes and breathed out. She wasn’t surprised. So she didn’t know why everything suddenly hurt so much. “Too premature?” The nurse hesitated. “Obviously not or you wouldn’t be flinching,” Marta snapped. “Please, just tell me.”

“The fetus was badly deformed,” the nurse replied carefully, sympathetically. Marta could have hit her for it. She spoke carefully, trying to be precise. “It could have been any of several chromosomal abnormalities. The doctor hasn’t made any specific determinations yet.” 

Outcome. Marta started counting her breaths. She had known there was a risk Aaron’s gametes had been affected as well. They’d sterilized all the female Outcome agents as a preventative measure, because they expected birth defects and mitochondrial anomalies. No one had been sure if the men carried the same risk, and there wasn’t any interest in exploring further. Any male Outcome agent who got a lover pregnant would have been scrubbed from the program. Marta could admit to herself now that Byer had probably meant killing the asset, the woman, and the unborn child. But it had been against all logical odds Marta had gotten pregnant in the first place. It was stupid to think that their luck would extend to a second miracle of a healthy, or even a viable, child. She had anyways.

“Was it developed enough to determine the sex?” she asked. Her voice cracked on the last word, but she stared up at the ceiling determinedly. She wasn’t going to cry strapped to a bed.

“It was male,” the nurse murmured, patting Marta’s hand again. Marta loved her a little for not saying ‘son’ or ‘boy’. “Doctor Shearing, do you want more ice chips?”

Marta stared up into the fluorescent lights until she saw black spots. “Yes, please. How soon will the doctor be here?”

“Soon.” The nurse offered another spoonful of ice chips. Mechanically, Marta took the cool mush and held it on her tongue, letting it melt down her throat. She felt rattled like everything had been shaken until her thoughts fell out her ears. It would have been easier to focus if Aaron was there, or maybe it wouldn’t. He did all the observation. He was always asking her to remember details of wherever they were. How many women in red? How many men with cell phones? Marta still wasn’t any good at it.

It hadn’t mattered to Aaron. He’d always been happy to take care of her. Ever since they’d found out about the pregnancy, Aaron had kept a hand over her stomach when they slept and fingers tucked next to her hip when they walked. Marta had explained to him again and again that people bumping into her wouldn’t hurt the baby, but she’d always been glad he was there to guard dog her space when people got too curious. Aaron was ready to be a father. They’d made plans for a small house, for him to stay at home while she worked.

Aaron had been hoping for a girl. He wouldn’t say it, but Marta could see it in the way he watched her. He wanted a little girl with dark brown hair and clever eyes that reminded him of her. But he would have loved a son just as much. Marta could imagine a smiling toddler with pale eyes and dark hair. A little boy with Aaron’s smile, Kenneth’s smile before he knew what it was like to be used. Any child of Aaron’s would smile a lot. Not that she would ever know it for sure now, but she knew. It wasn’t supposed to hurt this much. Aaron had imagined babies in his white picket daydreams. Marta had given up on romantic notions of motherhood in college.

The nurse gently patted Marta’s shoulder. “I have books here. I can read to you while we wait.” She sounded kind but not pitying. “How about some Austen?”

“Yes, that’d be fine,” Marta said shaking herself. “Thank you.” She closed her eyes and tried to care about Emma Woodhouse. The prissy little bitch was still better than imagining Aaron with a giggling boy tucked under one arm.

As the nurse paused to take a sip of water, she said, “I never did like this one. It always felt kind of personal.”

“Hmm,” Marta said roughly, too far into her navel gazing to even pretend to care.

“My name’s Emma. I always took it personally when she was being an idiot in the story,” the nurse said gently. “More ice?” She smoothly got Marta to swallow another spoonful of ice chips that was mostly water.

“Emma,” Marta said, half testing the name, half making a decision, “will I be able to see the child? It’s been awhile since my OB/GYN rotation, but I remember giving parents the option.”

Emma grimaced. “I’m sorry, Doctor Shearing, I don’t know. That’s up to the Director. I can ask him for you. But they’ve already started the autopsy.”

“That’s fine. Thank you.” Marta replied reflexively. Good manners were her last defense against the heaving sobs she could feel in the back of her throat. “Emma, I didn’t want the baby. Aaron just looked so happy. He tried to do the right thing, but he’s never happy. We never let him be happy. And I thought… All I had to do was be pregnant for nine months. Then he was waiting to be a full-time dad.” Emma laid her hand over Marta’s. “Please, I just have to know if it’s my fault.”

“Doctor Shearing…Marta, honey, it’s not your fault,” Emma said firmly. “This is not your fault . You know that.”

Marta tried to laugh. Her throat was still too sore, and it came out an awful cackle. “It might be. He was my lab rat for longer than he was my husband.” She hadn’t counted before for the sake of her own sanity, but the math added up. “Can you unstrap at least one of my hands? I’d rather not cry while I’m tied down.”

Emma shook her head, not unsympathetic. “I’m sorry. It’s SHIELD policy . Here. Let me get some tissue.” She carefully mopped the damp and thin sheen of spit from Marta’s eyes and mouth. “If I can leave you alone for five minutes, I can see if I can speed up your processing so we can get those off you.”

“That’s fine,” Marta said, gasping in an attempt to keep her composure. “I’ll wait.” Her voice was reedy and strained. Emma pressed a hand to her shoulder, present but not intrusive. Marta gathered herself with deep breathing and a hard glare at the beige ceiling tiles. She was quiet, appreciative of Emma’s silent support until she could brace herself to be alone. “I’m ready.”

“I’ll clock five minutes. If I can’t do anything before that, I’ll come right back,” Emma promised. Marta kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling. There was a shadow of a stain on one of the tiles. If she kept looking at it, trying to see the vague shape, she didn’t have to think.

The door opened with a groan, loud in the silent room, then slammed shut. Breathing with forced steadiness, Marta closed her eyes and started counting down sixty-second blocks. She was on block four when the door opened. The noise startled her into sitting up as far as the restraints would let her. “Emma?”

“Not quite, Doctor Shearing,” a man rumbled. “Hill, let her up.” He was big, bigger than Aaron, dressed in a long, black coat and had an eyepatch with scars peeking out around the edges . From beside him, a scowling woman in a dark blue catsuit stepped forward to release Marta’s hands. Emma hurried out from behind them to help Marta sit up.

“Slowly, take deep breaths. Do you feel dizzy or nauseous?” Emma asked as she settled a pillow behind Marta’s back to stabilize Marta’s swaying.

“Dizzy, but it’s passing,” Marta said hoarsely. “Can I have some water?”

“Of course, Doctor.” Emma patted Marta’s shoulder and passed over a handful of tissues, satisfied her patient wasn’t going to keel over. She glanced hesitantly at the man and woman.

The man smiled. It looked more like a snarl. “Go ahead, nurse, and take a few minutes. We need to speak to your patient.” Emma frowned and patted Marta’s shoulder again but left the room. “Welcome back to the world of living, Doctor. We almost lost you on the way back from Tokyo.” Marta didn’t say anything, swallowing to try ease the soreness of her tacky throat. “Now the question is, what do you with you since didn’t die.”

“Where’s my husband?” Marta asked, not daring to make eye contact yet. She dabbed at her mouth and examined the tissue to try and cover her nerves.

“Right now? Somewhere in Afghanistan. He’s helping us keep an eye on some people.” The man dragged a chair over and turned it around to straddle the seat facing Marta. The woman remained standing. “He wasn’t told the boy died. I figured you’d want to tell him yourself.”

Sickness slicked through Marta’s whole a body, a chill of horror that left her shivering despite the comfortable temperature of the room. She looked around for Emma, whose calm presence was the only reassuring thing about Marta’s situation. “Why?”

The man smiled wider. “I believe in acknowledging your sins, Marta. It’s the only way to live with them.” He didn’t wait for her to struggle out a response. “If your husband hadn’t made a deal that included your care and comfort while he’s employed by us, you’d be in the deepest, darkest hole I could find, waving good-bye to your last look at daylight. What you motherfuckers in at NRAG did wasn’t human, and you don’t deserve of the courtesy of being treated like one after what you did to the poor fucks you were using as lab rats.” 

“We didn’t know. They killed us too,” Marta protested weakly. “I didn’t understand.” That was at least the truth, poor as it was.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know what you did wasn’t anything like justifiable, let alone ethical,” the man said flatly. “Save the tears for someone who gives a shit, Marta. I’ve met hundreds like you. Thinking that your degree and your dedication to ‘science’ make you better than right and wrong. I’ll admit though, you’re the first I’ve ever met who’s managed to Stockholm Syndrome one of their victims into a relationship. The baby was a stroke of genius. I’ve never seen anyone with conditioning like Aaron’s before. He couldn’t stop himself from falling in love with you could he? Especially with the baby on the way. It’s in his training to love and protect, and what’s more instinctual than protecting the mother of your child?”

Marta was breathing through her mouth, not panting, not quite yet. “Don’t say that. I never asked him to love me. I never wanted kids. I never wanted any of this. It just happened.”

The man had to be the devil and this was a nightmare, because he was still smiling. “Come on, Doc. You’re a certified genius. You know better than that. The beauty of Outcome Five’s program is you never had to ask him to do what you wanted. He just did it to make you happy.”

“Who are you?” Marta spat out. “Who the fuck are you? You don’t know what NRAG was doing. They programmed one of my co-workers into a sleeper agent. He killed everyone but me. They killed everyone in Outcome except for me and Aaron. And I don’t know why. All we were trying to do is survive.”

“It’s funny then how you managed to convince your husband to help you survive after treating him like a science fair exhibit, isn’t it?” The man considered her then shrugged. “I’m Nickolas Fury, Director of SHIELD. This is Assistant Director Maria Hill, my right hand. You’re her problem now. You try to run, and I’ll arrange a suicide mission for your husband then shoot you myself. Otherwise, you’ll probably never see me again.” His last statement was clearly a threat. 

Marta’s nails were shredding the tissue in her hands. Her fingers were curled into white-knuckled fists on top of the blanket as she shook. Spots danced in front of her eyes when she tried to release the shredded, sweaty mess of paper sticking to her palm. Still, she nodded once, an acknowledgement to get him out of the room.

Emma seemed to reappear at Marta’s side as Fury put his chair back up against the wall. “Here’s your water, Doctor. Director, can I remove her restraints now?”

“Assistant Director Hill will be handling Shearing’s processing. Hill, I’ve got a meeting in a half hour, after that we’ll talk about the Odysseus Project .” Fury nodded to Emma and Hill before leaving with a dramatic flair of his long jacket. Marta felt the band twisted around her chest ease as he strode out. She gasped in several breaths before it her chest could clench again.

“Go ahead and get the restraints off her,” Hill ordered Emma. “Just maintain basic infirmary security protocol for the moment. There’s no need for elevated measures.”

Emma continued, persistent in a way she hadn’t been around Fury. “Doctor Shearing’s also requested to see the child.”

Hill grimaced. “That’s a medical decision. You and Doctor Smith-Jones do what you think is best. I’ll rubber stamp what I can.” Her lip curled as she glanced at Marta. “Let me know when she’s stable enough to assign to a permanent position somewhere.”

Marta wondered, hysterical enough she knew it, if this was what Aaron had felt like sitting on her exam table. Emma and Hill just spoke over her, like she wasn’t there. Her treatment options were entirely dictated by someone without a medical degree or even Byer’s interest in the greater good. Aaron had never talked about his time on her table, and she’d preferred it that way. Maybe this was karma.

Emma escorted Hill firmly to the door. “Doctor Shearing?” she said as she dimmed the lights in the room and came back to the bed to remove the cuffs on Marta’s ankles. Marta wasn’t sure how she’d known the fluorescents were starting to feel like pins driving into her pupils. “Would you like to be alone?”

“No,” Marta whispered, shaking her head almost spasmodically. “No. Could you read again, please? I...just a moment. Just until the doctor comes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean, who deserves all the cookies and tea for this chapter. I may have written it, but she made sure I went the right direction and offered invaluable advice.
> 
> For the comic book readers out there, I'm pulling from the Bobbi Morse storyline for this part.


	55. Welcome to the Jungle

Aaron tried to be surprised when the strange plane with its folding wings landed in Afghanistan. Even from the air and off in the distance he knew Camp Bastion. Camp Barber, the American section of the British military base, had been the closest thing to home for Kenneth back in the day. The bruises from the cuffs were just shadows on his wrists, not even sore anymore. He twisted his wedding band around his finger. They hadn't taken it when they'd taken his wallet, cellphone, and knife, but Barton, his new officer, kept eyeing it.

When Barton unbuckled himself and went forward to talk to the pilots, Aaron slipped off his ring and slipped it into his cheek. He folded his fingers over each other to hide the missing ring. Worst case, he'd swallow it for retrieval later. Hopefully, if it was out of sight, Barton would forget about it. Barton's own fingers were missing the distinctive tan line and there were only tags on the chain around his neck. Aaron would bet the cash in his missing wallet Barton had never been married and didn't see the point. Of all the people in the infirmary room, Barton had been the only one not to realize just how seriously Aaron had considered taking them all out to protect Marta and the baby.

Aaron sucked his cheek against the metal and tried to shake the thought. There had been a baby, he’d seen a glimpse of the little body, but the looks he’d received when he’d slurred questions had kept his mouth shut. He half-heartedly hoped Fury didn’t care about the baby. Common sense said that if the bastard had been able to leverage the kid against Aaron, he would have. But Aaron wasn’t quite ready to give up on the idea of being a father. The thought that he wasn’t any longer was too much of a distraction to risk.

Barton came back from the cockpit with a plastic wrapped bundle. He’d changed into the old NATO desert style BDUs with no rank insignia. He tossed the bundle at Aaron. Aaron caught the package and hefted it. It was relatively light, probably clothes. "Get changed," Barton ordered. "We'll get you new boots when we're on the ground. Have you kept up your conditioning?"

"Running mostly, basic PT when I feel like it." Aaron spoke slowly to keep his ring from slurring his words around the metal in his cheek. Barton didn't indicate a bathroom Aaron had been permitted to use earlier or even turn away. He wanted to see what his new weapon looked like. No one but Marta had watched Aaron undress since they'd run from Outcome. Aaron had spent his life in institutional situations. He wasn't used feeling awkward about his body or nakedness, but this wasn't a locker room and there wasn't another half-dozen guys changing around him. Barton was watching him with interest that looked nothing like the gleam in Marta's eye whenever Aaron pulled off his shirt.

So Aaron didn't make eye contact as he ripped the plastic off the pre-packaged uniform. It was digicam, standard US Army issue with a khaki t-shirt and cotton socks. The t-shirt and the jacket had reflective orange and white bands around the neck, hem, sleeves, and chest. The bands were both inside and out to keep him from just reversing the clothes. He wouldn't be going past the wire without destroying his shirt and jacket or risking becoming sniper bait. Still, as preventative measures went, it wouldn't stop him. Whatever jacket they had on him obviously didn't include his history with the region or his affinity for the local dialects.

The strategy was good. Afghanistan was an ideal place to isolate most Americans between the quiet, continuous war, rebel groups, and language barriers. All Aaron needed was one sympathetic local willing to give him a set of clothes, and he'd be in the wind. Except that he didn't know where Marta was, and if he vanished, she would end up dead.

Eyes looking straight ahead, Aaron set the clothes to the side and pulled off his t-shirt. It was one of the Led Zeppelin concert knock-off shirts, complete with misspellings, that Marta had bought him from a second hand shop in Indonesia. Toeing off his boots and stripping his socks, Aaron winced at the smell. The cargo pants were identical to three more pairs that were lost somewhere in a Tokyo motel room. It required a bracing breath to let them drop to the floor. There hadn't been time to deal with underwear when he was lifting Marta out a window at the first motel room.

The pants with the button fly were familiar, just like the cheap cotton of the t-shirt. They were Aaron Cross's uniform, fatigues with no name and rank. Before Aaron could pull on the shirt, Barton raised his hand and spun his finger in a circle to get Aaron to turn. "Christ," he said quietly when he saw the scar on Aaron's back. "They weren't kidding. Do you have any scars that postdate your involvement with Outcome?"

"They don't last," Aaron replied stiffly. "Deep wounds scar, but the scars fade fast." He didn't like giving Barton his back, and if the man took the liberty of touching the scar, where Jason and Jeff had rested a thumb and Marta liked to nip, Aaron would lose any semblance of control. "Can I put my shirt on, sir?"

"Go ahead, Shearing," Barton said, startled at the reminder his new soldier had a voice.

Aaron quickly yanked on the shirt and tucked it into his pants before pulling his belt snug. He sat back down to put on the fresh socks and his boots. The ring clicked against his molars as he ran his tongue over it. It hurt and calmed him at the same time, a tangible reminder why he was letting this happen.

Barton took Aaron's old clothes and tossed them in the waste bin. Aaron shrugged on the jacket, buttoned it part of the way up, and buckled himself back in. He looked out the window to hide his glare. The t-shirt had been one of his favorites.

SHIELD had a section of Camp Bastion, the properly British part of the camp, to themselves with the Brits as buffer between SHIELD and Camp Barber where the Americans were. The SHIELD personnel in the camp wore a variety of military style BDUs and some even sported the t-shirt, cargo pants, and safari vest usually favored by journalists. Only Aaron's new uniform had reflective bands on it.

"Yeah," Barton said as he noticed Aaron discretely examining everyone who was wearing digicam. "You're the only one wearing reflective tape. Outside of SHIELD's camp, the orders are to shoot you on sight. So stick close to home."

Aaron looked down at the inch and half wide band across his sternum. It would be a decent way to gauge center of mass even in the dark. "I'll keep that in mind, sir," Aaron replied dryly. He inhaled t he mixture of diesel fumes and desert as a humvee slowly rumbled past. The day was bright, just past noon. Aaron didn't know how many days he'd lost in a drugged haze curled up next to Marta or even how long their flight had been. The sedatives had left him too fuzzy to figure out where they'd taken off from or how long they'd been in the air. The air felt like the beginning of summer, of the long, hot, hellish days Kenneth had sweated through. Aaron sighed to himself and made a mental note to steal a look at a calendar to reset his internal clock.

Barton stopped at the door of a prefabricated barracks. Sprawled under a crudely assembled sunshade made of camouflage netting were four men dressed identically to Barton. They scrambled to their feet to salute when Barton cleared his throat. "We're back on, boys," Barton said with a fierce grin. "Fury came through. This is our new shooter."

"A convict?" The shortest of the four said incredulously. He was slender and his accent was Asian, but Aaron didn't care to take a guess at the region. The other men, despite being twice his size, gave him room as he shifted weight forward to take a closer look at Aaron. "Barney, we can't run missions and deal with another one of Fury's rejects."

"He's not a convict, just a conscript, Kuei," Barton waved off the man who had to be his lieutenant. "I've read his jacket. He's good. But if you still need convincing…" He stepped back and gestured at Aaron. "Put him through his paces. Just don't break him."

Kuei bared his teeth, finally looking directly at Aaron. "Okay. Come on, liumang. Let's go." His foot flew towards Aaron's head. Aaron dropped to the ground and scrambled back to give himself some space to regroup. Kuei’s boot caught him under the chin and threw him to the side. Rolling, jaw throbbing, Aaron grabbed a handful of dirt and launched himself to his feet. The grit flew in Kuei’s face making the other man take a step back. Aaron followed with a feinted punch to cover his kick at Kuei’s knee.

Aaron connected, barely pulling at the last moment to keep from shattering Kuei’s kneecap. “Sorry,” Aaron barked out, harried. “Sorry, sir.” He didn’t know who he was apologizing to. Just that he needed to stop this before someone got hurt. Kuei threw several rabbit punches at his face and chest. Aaron blocked but didn’t retaliate.

A second man punched Aaron in the back of the head. He’d lost one of his three spectators, and the biggest of Barton’s men was now behind him. Barton was grinning like he was watching an MMA match rather than two of his men trying to kill his new asset. Aaron went limp, falling backwards against the man behind him. Marta always said he was heavier than he looked. The guy who’d punched him the head grunted and staggered under Aaron’s weight. Kuei paused as well, not certain what had happened.

Aaron exploded. He wrapped his hands around the neck of the man behind him and dropped low. He threw the man behind him over his shoulder into Kuei. While they grappled with each other trying to untangle themselves, he somersaulted forward to slam his boots into one stomach and one head. It wasn’t graceful, but it did enough damage Barton yelled, “Match!”

“He’s rusty,” one of the spectator’s commented with a thick, familiarly Russian bite. “But we can work with that. He’s the first one Kuei hasn’t put in the hospital at least.”

“I’m glad he’s got your stamp of approval, Shostakov,” Barton said wryly. “Introduction time, boys. Get him on his feet.”

Aaron lashed out again, panicked, as four sets of hands reached for him. There were too many trained grips to fight. He found himself upright with his arms behind his back facing Barton. “Okay, soldier, you with us?”

Aaron jerked against the restraining hands. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Barton actually looked relaxed, pleased to be home. “Okay, soldier, meet your new brothers. Big, Viking, and Russian is Alexei Shostakov .” The big guy, who sounded so much like Bezhrondy it hurt, cocked his head in acknowledgement. He was wider than any of the others in the unit, and it was all obviously muscle. Aaron was glad he wasn’t the one who’d snuck up on his six, or the feint wouldn’t have worked. “His pissy looking friend is our resident Brit, Joey Chapman. He’s also the medic. So he’ll be looking you over and filling out the paperwork.” Chapman had been so quiet and still, Aaron had barely registered him except during the first count. He was the only one who didn’t look amused. “Willis Stryker is your new judo partner.”

The man restraining Aaron patted his arm surprisingly gently. “That was a dirty trick, white boy,” he said cheerfully. “I’m impressed.” He was pure New York through and through. “I got some M&Ms for you if you don’t take a swing at me when I let you go.”

Aaron relaxed a little. Stryker didn’t sound angry. “You got a deal, sir.”

“You can call me Billy, kid,” Stryker said, shaking Aaron with something like affection. “Don’t bother with that officer shit.” His grip on Aaron’s arms loosened. He stepped back slowly, and Aaron brought his arms forward. He could feel the burn of at least one pulled muscle in his shoulder.

Stryker stepped around, and Aaron could finally get a good look at him. He had a white smile that was still threatening despite the kindness, and scars on his throat, distinctly pink scrapes against his dark skin. He put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder, careful not to aggravate any bruises, and left it there, standing at Aaron’s side.

Barton raised an eyebrow. He shot Stryker a look Aaron knew well. Lots of people had silently said the same thing over his head. ‘Don’t get attached just yet.’ Stryker shrugged. “And this is my right hand, Shen Kuei. If he says it, you can assume it came from me. Boys, this is Aaron Shearing. Try not to get this one killed. He was expensive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Julorean betaed. She also said I should tell the rest of you the casting rattling around in my head for the first Strike Team Delta. Since she is wise and all knowing, I will not argue.
> 
> Alexei 'Sasha' Shostakov - Oleg Taktarov (http://www.movieinsider.com/photos/20932/1/)  
> Joseph 'Joe'/'Joey' Chapman - Richard Armitage (http://media.tumblr.com/e28cb9710101da8f19b6742ec63a8f33/tumblr_inline_mjppmnvCV61qz4rgp.jpg)  
> Willis 'Billy' Stryker - Terry Crews (http://cdn-media.hollywood.com/images/l/the-expendables-2-terry-crews-image.jpg)  
> Shen Kuei - Andy Lau (http://www.craveonline.com/images/stories/2011/2012/June/Film/Infernal_Affairs_Andy_Lau.jpg)  
> Barney Barton - Mark Wahlberg (http://photos.laineygossip.com/articles/lone-survivor-01aug13-01.jpg)


	56. Danny Boy

Emma gently shook Marta awake. "Good morning, Doctor Shearing. It's oh-seven hundred. Your debriefing is scheduled to continue at eight thirty. The doctor will be by in a half-hour to check in. Do you have any pain like yesterday?"

"No." Marta blinked slowly, still tired despite the drugs that made her sleep through the night. "I'm at two and holding." It had been a bad idea to attack her interrogator, but, rather than the bland flunky with the receding hairline, they'd put her in with a gung-ho child who'd suggested she lost the baby on purpose. Marta had blacked both his eyes and bloodied his nose before they pulled her off him. The retaliatory beating had been worth it. Even though two days later, Emma still had to help her sit up. "Could you help me to the shower, please? And could I get clean scrubs?"

"Sure. I'll bring them with breakfast." Emma helped Marta to her feet. "I know this isn't a good time, but the lab has released your child's remains. The doctor is going to want to know what you want to do."

Marta swallowed, closing her eyes and breathing through her nose. It had been almost a week and a half, and she hadn't heard from Aaron at all. "Thank you letting me know, Emma. I'll think about it."

Emma stayed with Marta until Marta was securely planted on the bathing stool in the walk-in shower. "Marta, honey," Emma whispered, keeping her voice low to keep anyone from overhearing them clearly as the water ran. "It wasn't your fault. You didn't do anything to the baby. It's not your fault. Come on, say it back to me."

Tipping her face into the flow of lukewarm water, Marta repeated, "It's not my fault. I didn't do anything to the baby. It's not my fault." Emma had been insistent about the mantra in conjunction with anti-depressants to treat the post-partum depression which had crept all the way through Marta when she'd cradled the body of her little boy for the first time. "I don't need help with my hair today Emma. Thank you." Emma patted her shoulder again and left her in peace.

Efficiently, Marta scrubbed herself. Emma had cut Marta's hair short after one of the interrogators had wrapped it around his fist and jerked Marta's head back badly enough to give her whiplash. The water was never hot enough here, temperature controlled for patient safety according to Emma. 

After her shower, she was relaxed enough to stand on her own without her bruises screaming. She wrapped the thin, too small towel around her in a precarious cover. The single-use toothpaste package had been replaced by Emma, and Marta brushed her teeth, staring at the strange woman in the mirror. The bleached part of her hair had grown out revealing the dark roots. The bags beneath her eyes were visible even beneath the bruise on her left. She looked haggard and ten years older than she did in Tokyo, with a cruel twist lingering on her mouth that hadn't been there before. The marks on her face made her look dangerous instead of victimized. She twisted her wedding ring around her finger. That had been Aaron's tic, but she couldn't stop herself even though all she wanted to do was pitch the metal circle against the wall and hide.

Emma knocked on the door before opening it. "Marta, I've got your scrubs. How are you moving?"

"Better than yesterday," Marta said with a grateful smile. The scrubs were a noxious yellow to distinguish Marta from the medical staff and their plain, navy scrubs. Emma gave her some privacy to change. When Marta came out of the bathroom, the doctor was waiting. There were two doctors assigned to her case as far she could tell. Smith-Jones was British, and Marta preferred her. Hirt was standing next to Marta's bed with her chart. He smiled too much for her tastes.

"Marta, how are we doing today?" he asked cheerfully.

Marta didn't actually hit him. "I prefer to be addressed as Doctor Shearing, Doctor Hirt." She sat cross legged on the bed. "I feel fine." Her sentences were clipped but polite. He'd been the delay between her and the baby and asked too many questions about Aaron.

Hirt nodded as he read her chart. "Hmm. Well, we’ll keep up the dosages of escitalopram. If you need further treatment, Emma can arrange something. I'd like to do more blood tests…"

"No," Marta interrupted coldly. "More samples aren't going help you, Doctor. I wasn't the donor responsible for the abnormalities you saw in the child." She laced her fingers together carefully in her lap. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like a chance to eat before your thugs start whaling on me again."

With a disgruntled sigh, Hirt put the chart back on the end of her bed. "There's also the matter of the disposal of the child's body. We've taken all the samples we need. I'd suggest cremation, but internment and burial are also options."

Closing her eyes, Marta breathed through her nose, centering herself like Aaron taught her when they sparred. "Cremation is fine. I'd like the ashes interred somewhere in the United States. My husband will want to see the grave."

"Very well. I'll make arrangements and pass along the paperwork through Emma." Hirt grimaced and started to say something else, but Emma interrupted with a question, herding him out of the room to give Marta a moment. Using the precious time she had left, Marta hurried to the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water. She was not going to walk into an interrogation already crying. She stared herself down in the mirror, trying to find the detachment Aaron always had when he was on her table. 

Another knock on the door of her room made her shudder. It wasn't Emma's light tap but a heavy thud. Two men in black fatigues entered, their hands on their stun batons. "Doctor Shearing. It's time to go," the smaller of the two said.

"Of course." Marta dried her face and slipped her feet into the flimsy hospital slippers set neatly next to the door of the bathroom. "Are you going to cuff me today?"

The smaller man, pale skin, dark eyes, dark hair and a wicked smile that might have been handsome on a kinder man, shook his head. "Not if you promise to behave." Marta nodded, a short jerk of her head. The two guards drew their stun batons. The smaller man grasped Marta's upper arm, and the three of them began the long march out of the medical area where Marta slept to the beige-painted interrogation rooms. Even though she'd made this walk seven times, there had never been anyone else in the halls.

They stopped in front of a steel door with a ‘3’ painted on it in dark blue paint that matched Emma's scrubs. The door slid open revealing the steel table and chairs Marta was starting to dream about. Agent Coulson was already sitting at the table with his box of files and tape recorder. There was something new today, a bulky phone. "Good morning, Doctor Shearing," Coulson said blandly. "Go ahead and have a seat. We're doing something new today. It’s been awhile since you’ve spoken to your husband."

Marta sat down in the car opposite him, keeping her hands under the table so he couldn't see her twisting her wedding ring. "Yes. It has been."

****

The restaurant was done up in the style of an Italian café. It was off the beaten path for the politicians and support staff who flooded the restaurants and coffee shops of the capital at lunch. There was no overt security, but the men and women in suits who were scattered through the café were too alert and athletic to be anything but SHIELD agents.

Byer nodded to Jack and Bobby Lee to take up positions at one of the empty tables. They were severely outnumbered, but Fury would have to be a lot further off the rails than usual to pick that kind of fight in public.

The director of SHIELD was sitting at a table near the kitchen with a steak dinner and a pint of pale beer in front of him. He smiled when he saw Byer, a wolf bearing his teeth. The message that Maria Hill, Fury's new right hand, had left with Mandy had been brief and uninformative. Byer stood in front of Fury, coat draped over one arm and tilted his head expectantly.

"Merry early Christmas," Fury gestured for Byer to sit across from him at the table. "I brought you a present." He indicated the box and envelope sitting at the place set for Byer. "I'd suggest eating first."

"No thanks," Byer said coolly, sitting down and ignoring the waiter who leaned over him to pour his glass of water. "I already ate." He set the envelope to the side. It was light, containing only a USB key. The box was cardboard, heavy for its size. Byer opened the box. It contained a plastic bag, twist-tied shut, full of grey grit. "Who is this?" Byer asked levelly, shutting the box.

Fury took another bite of his bloody steak. "Someone you were looking for," he said, dabbing his lips with a napkin. "We went ahead and taped the execution. So there wouldn't be any questions."

"Thank you," Byer said evenly. "I don't like loose ends. However, which loose end is this?" He lifted the box of cremated remains.

Putting down his fork, Fury picked up his glass of wine. "I believe the watchlist has him down as Aaron Cross. He gave his name as Aaron Shearing when we asked."

"Where's Marta Shearing?" Byer asked idly. It was only practice, and the frozen feeling of horror, that kept him from reacting to the box. "She would have been with him."

"Dr. Marta Shearing is my latest hire," Fury said with cruel, thin smile. "She won't be bothering you anymore. I've got a tablet here if you'd like see the video to confirm."

Byer held out his hand automatically, mind spinning with possibilities. SHIELD was known for being Machiavellian and ruthless, but never cruel. They wouldn't have hurt Aaron anymore than they had to, but Aaron was strong, stubborn, and good at surviving. The necessary damage could appear excessive. He plugged the USB into the tablet and tapped on the file to open it. The preview scene wasn't bloody or disturbing. Aaron was strapped to a hospital bed with an IV running into his arm and a heart monitor attached. The video was high quality, and when Byer started playing it, he could see Aaron breathing.

There was no sound as a man in black fatigues and a skull balaclava walked over to the side of Aaron's bed opposite the camera with an uncapped syringe and looked directly at whoever was filming. "You know," Fury said conversationally, "when a dog goes rabid, it's not the dog's fault. It's just sadism to be cruel to the animal. The kindest thing is to just quietly put it down as quickly as possible. We gave him enough sodium thiopental to knock out an elephant."

Swallowing, Byer watched as the skull-faced man slid the needle into the IV line and emptied the whole syringe. "Pancuronium. That's triple the dose they use in Texas." Fury took another bite of his steak as he explained. "Then a triple dose of potassium chloride."

Byer watched as the second syringe was produced, but the skull-faced man waited, watching the monitors. When Aaron's breathing slowed to a stop, he pushed the second syringe through the line into Aaron's arm. Thirty seconds later, Aaron convulsed, eyes sliding open a sliver. There was a second twitch then Aaron went limp. The heart monitor flat-lined. There were five more minutes of video. Byer fast forwarded through a masked doctor declaring time of death. Aaron's chest didn't move after the monitor flat-lined. "Why lethal injection?" he asked, voice not shaking in the least.

"I figured, after what you fucks put him through, he deserved to die peacefully," Fury said drolly. "We knocked him out in Tokyo. He never woke up, never had to be angry or afraid. We cremated him to keep anyone from getting their hands on his DNA."

SHIELD had pulled samples for themselves before cremating Aaron. Byer knew how Fury worked, but the man wouldn't lie about making sure Aaron didn't suffer. The samples would all be post-mortem. Aaron hadn't been vivisected or experimented on. Byer pulled the USB and tucked it in his pocket before picking up the box. "I'm satisfied. We done here?"

"I wouldn't say that, but I don't have anything else for you," Fury said with another teeth-baring smile. The blood from his steak made his teeth look pink. "Enjoy your present."

Byer managed a fake, sneering smile before he marched back to the car parked out front. With Jack in the driver's seat, and Bobby-Lee riding shotgun, Byer took a moment to collect himself, opening the box of ashes again. "Shit." He gently pressed his fingers against the bag and felt the grains slide beneath the thick plastic. There really wasn't that much ash. He wondered how much of Aaron was sitting in a freezer in SHIELD's lab. Pulling out his cell he dialed Mandy. "Captain, I need you to get me a plot in Arlington."

"Sir?" Mandy asked, puzzled.

"Fury caught Aaron and Shearing. He executed Aaron almost a week ago by the video timestamp. The meeting today was to give me video of the execution and whatever of Aaron they didn't keep for samples. The video's high quality, and I have no reason to believe Fury's lying about this. We both know how untenable turning Aaron would be." Byer closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the window. "I need you to arrange a plot and military honors for Kenneth Kitsom. We can bury what's left of him at least."

Mandy was quiet then she asked, "Did he suffer, sir?"

Byer blinked, looking out at the traffic. She sounded upset, not that anyone but him would notice. "No, Dita. Fury sedated him and used potassium. He just went to sleep and never woke up."

"Thank God," Mandy said roughly. "At least I won't have to lie to Jeff about that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the brilliant, extremely patient Julorean.
> 
> The guard who Marta isn't very fond of is Rumlow.


	57. Long, Black Veil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beated by the ever patient Julorean. All remaining mistakes very definitely mine.
> 
> The 'Bucky' is the Stark made sniper rifle that Aaron prefers.

"Well, the kid can shoot." Barton let out a low whistle when he looked at the cluster through his binoculars. "Come on, Shen. Give me that, man. You needed a shooter. I found you one."

Kuei snorted, his eyes on his mahjong game. "He'd shoot you in the back as soon as Bachman."

"Give me some credit, Shen. Fury's got his wife. And the last people he worked for would blow her head off if he breathed wrong. The kid's scared shitless even if his hands are steady." Barton watched as the new boy killed another target with eerie precision under Shostakov's watchful gaze. The last shooter Fury had given them was a former hitman, more used to the urban jungle than spider holes and mountains. It had been the distant sound of artillery that got to him eventually. He'd charged the wire, and a Regiment man had put a bullet in his head before one of the locals could. Kuei hadn't been impressed.

With a disapproving click of his tongue, Kuei replied, "A cornered dog is the most dangerous." He carefully moved one of the magnetic tiles from the stack and put it back into the box that fit beneath the board. Barton had gotten him the travel mahjong set for Chinese New Year. He'd never said thank you, but it was rare he ever sat still without it at hand.

"He managed to dodge your homicide attempt, and even Shostakov is happy with his shooting. Give me the win, Shen. I fucking well deserve one." Barton settled into the dirt next to the rock Kuei was sitting out. "Fury's giving the Odysseus Project to his new bitch. He's got me out here shooting rats and pretending I'm in charge of Team Delta. Even though you've been running the fucking unit since I've promoted. Fuck!"

"Do you want my advice, or are you just here to whine?" Kuei murmured as he plucked another two tiles away. Barton glared up at him. "The new toy is good, better than anything else we've had. We need him on our side. Then we can take all those missions no else could pull off. Barney, it's not that Fury doesn't trust you. You just fucked up with Chisholm, and you fucked up in the middle of New York City. He sent you to Afghanistan to see if you learned from your mistake. Now, are you going to be a child, or remind him why he promoted you to be the head of SHIELD's enforcement arm?"

Barton flopped backwards and stared up at the endless blue sky as the dust eddied above him. It was beautiful, and he missed civilization. "So how do I make friends with the guy I'm pointing a gun at?"

Kuei shrugged. "He's married? Every married man in this camp misses his wife. Most try to call home once a week and write letters when they can't call. Some even keep a picture with them, to remind them who they fight for."

"How's Leiko doing?" Barton asked quietly, narrowing his eyes at the glare from the sun.

"MI-6 keeps her busy. She missed our anniversary dinner in Kabul." He passed Barton the photo his friend had seen many times, the edges were worn white, soft and the layers were peeling away from each other in small rolls. Leiko Wu. British daughter of Cantonese immigrants who owned a modestly successful restaurant in Chester. Kuei didn't say how they met or how long they'd been married, only that he missed her shrimp dumpling soup like Chapman missed Boddingtons Pub Ale.

"I'll get Hill to send me a sweetheart photo for the new kid," Barton agreed. He handed the photo back. "One of these days, you're actually going to introduce her in person, you shy bastard."

Kuei just shook his head. "You'd try to steal her, Barton. Then I'd have to kill you and Billy and Joey would be upset."

Barton laughed. "Not Sasha?"

"Alexei doesn't give a shit about any of us." Kuei shrugged. "Call Hill, and don't call her a bitch to her face. She will bite out your throat."

Shostakov shoved Aaron forward. He stumbled and recovered but didn't protest. It didn't feel aggressive. After the initial beating, his new teammates hadn't been cruel, just disinterested. They shoved, snarled, and hit if he didn't move the right way quickly enough or got too close, but otherwise ignored him. Every day, Aaron woke up wherever he'd found to sleep that night. No one had offered him a bunk, and he wasn't about to ask. He had a bag and blankets on the floor of Barton's room. He made sure he was up before the rest of camp, sneaking into the mess tent to eat alone. All of the communications equipment in camp was too well guarded to try and steal a sat phone to make contact with Marta. None of the SHIELD agents even carried personal cell phones.

After breakfast, there was PT. Aaron voluntarily added two extra miles to his morning runs along with a few other agents who were dedicated marathoners in their civilian lives. The official breakfast was after PT, and Aaron ate again. The food was free and, for the first time in a long time, there was plenty of it. After that he trained with Kuei, refreshing the muscle memory he'd let lapse or shooting with Shostakov acting as spotter. They did let him keep the Bucky he was issued with him around camp, just without any clips. He stole a knife from an agent who was rotating out and kept it tucked in his boot. Evenings were for planning. Aaron sat on the floor of the barracks while the other four men discussed a German target. Though what a German was doing running around the desert with former Taliban, Aaron didn't care to guess at. He was only there to look at topo maps and suggest lines of sight.

It was a rhythm, one the Army had beaten into Kenneth's bones. Aaron had fallen back into his old habits, some from Outcome, some even older. He kept his eyes down and only moved slow and clumsy unless there was no one watching. SHIELD wasn't a fully military organization. There were enough civilians in the camp, that Aaron was able to keep the sympathetic cooks quiet about his fourth meal of the day. When he wasn't training or planning, he made it a point to help around the mess tent. The senior cook was British, second generation Pakistani-Hindi and proud of it. Her touch with spices made tickets for hot meals from the SHIELD mess currency through all of Camp Bastion. She had a soft spot for Aaron and his appetite and no great fondness for 'Team Delta' where he'd been assigned. 

Agent Mandawala was also a great source of gossip. Especially when she realized Aaron spoke the local dialects fluently, including Punjabi, the language of her parents. As Aaron and Shostakov passed the mess tent she called out in Punjabi. Aaron stopped. "Sir, Agent Mandawala needs some help with some boxes. I'll catch up in a minute." Shostakov grunted and waved him off. Aaron slipped the strap of his Bucky over his head and walked back into the kitchen. There was a rifle rack at the entrance since Mandawala didn't like long guns around boiling pots of liquid. He took off his jacket as well since the heat from the stove and pots made sure the large shack which contained the kitchen was always hot and humid.

One of Mandawala's minions smiled at him as he hustled past with a pot full of pasta and water. Mandawala was standing by the open side door glaring at a plastic wrapped pallet. Aaron spoke in English, "You need help with that, Agent?"

"Yes." Mandawala glared at the box like it had personally offended her. "That is my rice for the next two weeks. They just dumped it there."

Aaron shook his head, "Rude. Where to you want it?"

"In the larder. Do it quick and there'll be something sweet for you." Mandawala scowled and yelled at one of her minions as a pot started smoking. Aaron just shook his head, pulling out his knife and slitting the plastic holding the bags of rice to the pallet. He carried the bags four at a time into the storage unit. The kitchen staff were used to his displays of brute strength at this point - though some of the men and women still paused to admire him as he worked. After the rice pallet was emptied, he took the pallet to the dumpster outback and then ended up helping lift pots full of water that had been left to soak.

He was shoulder deep in near scalding water since it didn't bother him, scrubbing off encrusted sauce, when Chapman's head appeared through the door leading to the serving area. The medic glanced around warily, aware he wasn't welcome. "Shearing?"

"Here." Aaron grimaced as he pulled his arm out of the sink. He'd rolled up his sleeve, but his shirt was still wet . "I'll be done in five." He pulled the pot out of the scrubbing sink and passed it over to another minion. "Agent Mandawala?" He flagged her down. "I'm being summoned."

Throwing her hands in the air, Mandawala started cursing in her distinctive mix of Punjabi and Hindi. She reached over and snagged one of the individual brownies, shoving it in Aaron's mouth. "Take another for the road." With a scathing glare at Chapman she added, "And if Barton can spare you after dinner, I'd like you back here."

"I'll make it if I can," Aaron promised in Punjabi around a mouth of brownie. She patted his arm firmly and dismissed him with a wave as something caught on fire. Aaron scooped up a second brownie and made his way to the serving area, dodging around everyone else. He eyed his jacket and rifle then the brownie and Chapman. With a sigh, he handed over the second brownie. Chapman raised an eyebrow. "For your trouble," Aaron explained. He pulled on his jacket and slung the Bucky over his shoulder.

Chapman took a cautious bite of brownie. When it proved to be fully cooked and not poisoned, he happily popped the whole thing into his mouth. "How did you convince that she-devil that runs the kitchen to give you this?"

Aaron's back stiffened. "I'm sure if you helped in the kitchen, she'd be happy to slip you something too."

"If she saw any of us, even Stryker, in her kitchen, she'd douse us in cooking oil and light our arses up like a bacon-scented roman candle." Chapman licked the chocolate off his fingers. "Not that I blame her. Barney's not a charming lad on his best day." He grimaced. "The boss does want to speak to you. Don't ask me about what."

Aaron grimaced as well. He preferred it when Barton ignored him. The man didn’t have a nice word to say about his own mother let alone anyone else. Still, he braced himself with a neutral expression and ducked into the barracks. Barton and Stryker were arguing quietly through the open door of Barton's quarters.

Kuei was in one of the chairs. On the crate in front of him, next to the radio, was a satellite phone. "Sit," Kuei ordered. Aaron sat on the crate next to Kuei's chair.

"He can do it with supervision, or he can choose not to talk. Not my problem," Barton said sharply he walked out of his quarters. He collapsed on the couch, pushing Shotsakov's legs to the side. "Shearing," he waited until Aaron met his eyes. "In one minute that phone is going to ring. Your wife will be on the other end. You're both under supervision, but you'll be able to hear her. And she'll be able to hear you."

Aaron hissed softly, his eyes darting to the phone then back to Barton. "Sir, can I get a three minute, one minute, and thirty second warning?"

Barton tipped his head to Kuei, who nodded. "Yeah. Kuei will call it out from the time you pick up."

Chapman came over and tapped Aaron's shoulder with a bottle of water, making sure Aaron could see him the whole time. Aaron nodded his thanks and drained half. Stryker walked over and put a hand on Aaron's shoulder. "Deep breath, kid. She's going to be scared. You've got to be strong for her." Aaron nodded again, compulsively. Then he spat out his wedding ring, wincing at the bruised, irritated skin of his upper cheek where he'd been hiding it. He wiped the ring off on the hem of his t-shirt and slid it on.

Next to him, Kuei was breathing smooth and steady. Aaron matched his own breathing to Kuei's, keeping his eyes on the phone as he passed the bottle back to Chapman and put his hands on his knees. His fingers curled in the material of his fatigues as he waited. Stryker's fingers squeezed his shoulder every five breaths like a metronome. Aaron relaxed into the grip. Lack of reinforcement had reduced the effectiveness of his conditioning, but some things stuck.

The phone went off with the concussion of a gunshot in the silent room. Stryker kept Aaron from lunging forward and knocking the phone off the table. He held Aaron still while Kuei reached over and picked up the phone to hand to Aaron. Aaron steadied himself, pressing the phone to his ear and waiting for the three beat countdown from Kuei before answering. "Marta, sweetheart?"

"Aaron," Marta gasped, voice thick and watery. "Aaron, oh God, you're alive."

Aaron closed his eyes and pressed his thumb hard against his wedding band. "Yeah, Doc, I'm alive. Breathe for me, light of my life. We've got five minutes. Are you okay? Are they treating you well?"

"Yes," Marta stuttered out between gasps. "I'm okay. I've got my own nurse looking out for me. Her name is Emma. They've been questioning me, but it's not as bad as you said it might be. They've only touched me once, and I started it."

"They touched you. Do you have names, Doc? Just tell me," Aaron snarled

"Don't worry about them," Marta ordered. "Agent Coulson already yelled at them. He's done the questioning ever since. He doesn't even threaten to hurt me." She inhaled deeply, several times. "Aaron, the baby…"

"Marta, you don't have to say anything," Aaron quickly interjected. "Not if you don't want to."

Marta cut him off with a, "No, Aaron. The baby was stillborn. Genetic defects. It would have died no matter what we did."

"Shit," Aaron breathed, his eyes burning. "Fuck. Marta, genetic defects?" Kuei gave him the three minute warning.

She heard the question in his voice. "Statistically, we weren't in a good place because of my age, but Emma let me see the autopsy report. You can't have children, Aaron. It's a one in a million chance a fetus will even be viable with the damage we did. And almost impossible the child would be healthy." Her voice was choppy and cracked as she spoke. She was crying, and Aaron couldn't do anything about it. "I'm sorry."

"Hey," Aaron said, swallowing the thickness in his throat. "Hey, Marta, this isn't your fault. The baby, none of it. This. Isn't. Your. Fault. I love you."

Marta broke into full sobs. Aaron made soothing noises. His thumbnail dug into his ring finger hard enough to draw blood. Kuei signaled one minute. "Doc, we've got one minute. Okay, I love you. Is there anything else?"

"It was a boy," Marta choked out. "I named him Jeffery James Shearing."

"JJ," Aaron repeated. His eyes were welling up, but his voice was clear and steady. "That's a good name. JJ Shearing." As he spoke, Kuei signaled thirty seconds. "Okay, our time is almost up. I love you. Cooperate, okay. I'm just soldiering. So don't worry about me."

Marta protested, "Aaron. Aaron…" Her voice cut off suddenly. Aaron held the phone to his ear for long seconds afterwards. As the buzz of international dial tone sounded, the tears finally spilled over. They crept down his face as he handed the phone back to Kuei staring straight ahead.

"Kid?" Stryker asked as Chapman echoed, "Mate?"

"The baby didn't make it," Aaron said simply. Even Barton went white. "Can I be dismissed, sir?"

"Yeah," Barton said, stilted. "Absolutely. Fuck, man. I'm sorry. I didn't know. Um, dismissed. All I ask is you stay in camp."

Aaron stood stiffly. "Yes, sir. I'm going for a run." He left his jacket and rifle in Barton's quarters before taking off.

Chapman stood as well. "I'll go make sure he doesn't run himself to death."

Stryker nodded. "Yell if you need help restraining him." Chapman tossed a careless two finger salute before grabbing two bottles of water and jogging after Aaron. Both Stryker and Kuei turned on Barton. "His wife was pregnant?" Stryker said dangerously.

"They told me she miscarried," Barton said sharply. "No one said shit about there being a body." He stared after Aaron. "I never would have fucking agreed to bring him on if I knew. Fuck Fury."

Kuei huffed. "We can use this," he decided. "We must be kind. Even you Sasha, though no kinder than you are to the rest of us. Chapman will need no orders. He is a medic for a reason, and Shearing is hurting. Stryker?"

"I've dealt with this twice before," the old marine said. "One we lost to a suicide charge. It was his first and only child, a girl. And his wife left him soon after. Not that anyone could blame her. He didn't even blame her, but it was just too much for him."

Barton sighed. "Okay. Stryker, you watch him too. I'll call Coulson. We'll make sure his wife doesn't walk on this for the moment. Kuei, go to the mess tent. We're eating dinner in here tonight as a team. Tell that psychotic bitch it's for Shearing, bad news from back home. She'll whip up something he might actually eat. Sasha, find me a bed, camp cot, or bunk. I don't give a shit. New boy's not sleeping on the floor tonight. Set him up near Chapman. Tomorrow, we do a milk run. Go outside the wire. Hunt some people on the black list. Let the kid stretch his legs and get his hands bloody." He rubbed his hand across the face. “Killing terrorists is the next best thing to therapy or alcohol.”


	58. A Horse with No Name

Mikael brought a gun to the hospital. Even in the middle of Tel Aviv, things weren't always what they seemed. The woman was waiting for him in the admissions area, dressed in navy scrubs with the SHIELD emblem embroidered on the breast pocket. "Agent Nancy Fieldman from SHIELD Medical," she introduced herself briskly. "I'm your granddaughter's escort."

She held out her hand, and Mikael shook it. "Her parents?" Nancy shook her head noncommittally. "Ah. I see." He looked around. Nancy didn't appear to have an escort of her own. "Where's the child?"

"She's in the neo-natal intensive care unit. She was extremely premature, and there were complications with the birth. But we're optimistic. This way." Nancy gestured for Mikael to follow her through the swinging doors and down the hall to the elevator. They travelled up the floors in silence, past a nursery and rooms full of happy parents and healthy babies, to a small, private room. Two men in black fatigues were guarding the door. Nancy gave them her ID card and said, "He's the grandfather."

One of the men unlocked the door. In the center of the room was a plastic incubator. A tiny, breathy wail echoed from it. "Toda lecha elohim," Mikael breathed. The little girl was shrunken and had tubes coming out of her, but her skin was pink and her eyes clear, icy blue. "Can I touch her?"

"You'll need to scrub up first, but yes." Nancy showed Mikael the sink and the soap he needed to use. He obediently cleaned his hands with the soap, hot water, and a brush until his skin stung. "The doctors here are very good. They've been given a comprehensive briefing on her case and will take great care of her until she's ready to go home."

"Did her parents name her?" Mikael asked as he carefully slipped his hand through one of the holes in the side of the incubator. He touched a fingertip to her tiny palm and gasped as the fragile fingers curled around it. Ruth's granddaughter, alive. “Fury mentioned a boy as well?”

Nancy shook her head. "No. I know you were told it was twins, but the boy didn't make it. I'm sorry." She looked down at the little girl. "You're all she has in the world."

"Shalom, Yehudit," Mikael whispered. "Of course. Fury said it's all been arranged?" His question was absent, enchanted by the sharp eyes which were following him.

"Once Yu-dit," Nancy soldiered through distinctively Hebrew name, "is stable, the plans you made with Fury will take effect."

Mikael nodded, having eyes only for his granddaughter. David had cut the deal with Fury to get Mikael out of Mossad for good. SHIELD was providing Mikael with new identities for him and his grandchildren - now just granddaughter - and decent employment somewhere far from Israel. That would be the end of Mikael's family's involvement in geopolitics. He'd raise Yehudit in peace, and David would no longer have to worry about making nice with the last of the old guard. "She's beautiful. What am I going to do?"

Nancy smiled softly. "You're going to take very good care of her, I can tell. I'll need you to fill out her birth certificate." She handed him a clipboard with American and Israeli paperwork. The parents on both were listed as Aaron Levi and M. Levi with no details on the mother. The paperwork stated Yehudit Ruth Cohen had been born in Tokyo. Both parents were deceased; copies of death certificates from Japan were included. The cause of death was listed as massive trauma from a car accident. There were also guardianship papers giving permanent rights to Yehudit's paternal grandfather.

Mikael signed and initialed his way through the stack of papers. At the end, he signed his full name and title. Mikael Cohen, Senior Agent of the Intelligence Department, Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. He looked at his name, then at Yehudit. It was worth it. "Please have Fury pass on my resignation to David. I'm going to stay with my granddaughter rather than waiting at my desk to be terminated."

Taking back the paperwork, Nancy nodded. "I'll make sure it's done. Go ahead and sit with her. She needs you close by." Mikael would hand it to Fury, as both a threat and a bribe, Yehudit was a stroke of brilliance. A man raising a child was vulnerable and too busy to seek vengeance. To protect Ruth's granddaughter, Mikael would have to sacrifice her son. He was Israeli though, as Ruth had been, and it was a sacrifice he would make gladly. She would have made the same choice.

\---------

"I don't think that kid is Taliban." Aaron lifted his head from the scope to double check. "No, definitely just a goatherder. Who's feeding us intel again?" Shostakov snorted from somewhere down in the drainage ditch where the rest of the team was hiding. Aaron held his rifle out of the dirt as he crawled backwards to join them. Stryker grabbed his belt and dragged him the last few feet to safety rather than forcing Aaron to wiggle his ass in their faces. "Sorry, sir. That kid is all of fourteen and more interested in his walkman than terrorism or goats."

Barton groaned. "I'm going to kill those dipshits in analysis. Okay, boys, back to the van. We've got another three suspects to check off the list. Shearing, you’re up top again."

Aaron sighed and jogged ahead to where Kuei and Chapman were standing guard. Barton had him manning the machine gun on top of the Humvee. The rest of the team had figured out pretty early on Aaron had the best eyes and the best instincts about the locals as well as an appropriate amount of paranoia about IEDs. Aaron wasn't unhappy with spending the bulk of his time outside of the baking hot metal box reeking of unwashed men that the Humvee turned into in the summer sun. It also meant not having to deal with Stryker's careful gruffness, Chapman's awkward kindness, or the others' stares. Up top, as Kuei drove the Humvee down the dirt roads at teeth rattling speeds, Aaron didn't have to time to think about Marta or the son that never was. Or the fact his white picket fence fantasies were just one more thing Outcome had taken from him.

With his boots jammed tightly into the rack holding the gun to the Humvee, Aaron squinted through the dust blowing into his face. He had a pair of protective plexiglass goggles and kept his shemagh tied over his mouth. This was the second walkabout Barton had dragged them on. Aaron wasn't quite sure what they were looking for, but he wasn't going to protest being allowed to remove his prisoner’s strips and getting out of camp. A quarter mile up the rode of glint of something caught his eye. Balling his gloved fist, Aaron pounded on top of the Humvee. Kuei slowed down as Aaron touched his throat to turn on his mic, "I've got some sort of reflection up ahead. I'm going to dismount and walk it for awhile. Shostakov, you're on the gun." Aaron tugged his boots free and stood up before the Humvee had stopped rolling. He stepped around the gun and ran down the Humvee's windshield to hit the ground running in front.

Kuei was screaming in Cantonese at him over the radio. Aaron just grinned beneath the fabric over the lower half of his face. He tugged the Bucky down and checked there was a round in the chamber before cradling it in his arms. Lengthening his stride, he stayed just ahead of the Humvee as it slowed to match his jog. His eyes scanned the road for whatever had caused the glare. Another flash of light appeared in the corner of his eye, and he slowed to a walk. Behind him, the Humvee's engine ground loudly as Kuei matched Aaron's pace.

It took Aaron a moment to see the box, half buried next to the road. He pumped his fist in the air to stop the Humvee. "I've got a suspicious package. It's making noise," he reported over the radio. The package let out another loud click. "How do we proceed, Barton?"

"Get the fuck behind the van, Shearing," Barton barked back. The volume of the command made the radio crackle. "You're not wearing a flack vest."

Aaron hesitated. For a moment, he heard a voice that he couldn't quite place over the radio. It was saying, "Back off, Kitsom. We need EOD." The name was wrong, but Aaron knew what would happen if he listened.

"I'm going to try and disarm it. Get out of here," Aaron said, pulling the radio the radio out of his ear before Barton could order him back, pulling his shemagh down as well. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and groped in his pocket for the multi-tool he used on his rifle. It wasn't ideal, but there weren't any other options. He opened it to the combination pliers and wire cutters. Taking a deep breath of the dusty, burning air, he coughed then tentatively started brushing dirt from the IED. It didn't look like anything he'd ever seen or heard of before. The bomb had three glass bottles connected by copper colored tubes to something made of gears like a Swiss clock.

Behind him, Kuei at least had the sense to pull the Humvee out of the reasonable blast radius. Aaron kept digging with his free hand, slow and careful not to jar the box. It wasn't buried well or carefully. There didn't seem to be any remote detonation hardware. No cell phone or receiver set up. It was unnerving since the bomb kept whirring and clicking as Aaron worked.

Luckily, there was a power source. Black and red wires disappeared into the guts of the strange machine. Aaron carefully lifted the wires with the bare skin of his fingers, above where he'd cut off his protective gloves. He ran back trying to see what they were connected to, but the lines disappeared into the sand for almost three feet with no sign of stopping. "What the fuck?" Another loud click made Aaron abandon his search for the power source. Instead, he followed the wires into the machine. The circuit didn't make any more sense than the wires which seemed to go nowhere. There were radio crystals in it. "Fuck it," Aaron muttered. He grabbed the red wire and cut it. The bomb stopped whirring and clicking. Closing his eyes, he braced himself for the heat and pressure of an explosion.

Nothing happened. Aaron exhaled and popped his earpiece back in. "We're clear for the moment. This is the weirdest IED I've ever seen, and I've built a few."

"Shearing, don't you fucking move," Barton howled. "I'm gonna kill your suicidal retard ass." He was out of the Humvee, moving fast enough Aaron startled backwards at the first punch. Aaron dodged the second blow and blocked a kick.

Barton's hand shot out in something that wasn't a hit as it curved around the back of Aaron's neck. "Don't you ever do that to me ever fucking again, kid!" Barton shook Aaron like a dog with a misbehaving puppy. Aaron let it happen, more puzzled than concerned. "Jesus fuck. Okay, Sasha, get your ass over here and tell me what we're dealing with. Shearing, back in the fucking van. Sit next Chapman and try not to do anything totally fucking brainless for the next fifteen minutes." Barton shook Aaron again looking as startled by his own actions as Aaron felt. "Go."

Aaron ran as soon as Barton let his neck go. Shostakov and Kuei were headed over to Barton, and Stryker covered them with the gun on the Humvee. Aaron clambered into the well armored backseat with Chapman, awkwardly shifting his Bucky to fit. "Let me see your neck," Chapman ordered, pushing aside the collar of Aaron's jacket. "What the bloody hell were you thinking, you dumb wanker?" Chapman's fingers were gentle as they pressed against the column of Aaron's throat. "Well, you're going to have some bruises, but, despite distinct symptoms of severe brain damage, you'll be fine. Fuck me."

Barton breathed slowly, carefully. Seeing his hand on the back of a tanned neck with sun bleached, military cropped hair was a sense memory strong enough to make him queasy. Clint had been the same way, not that Barney would have ever hit his little brother, but how many times had Clint gone kitten limp as Barney tried to shake the stupid out of him? Disabling an IED, a Hydra IED at that, with nothing but a multi-tool specialized for rifle maintenance sounded like one of the crazy stories Clint's squad mates still told at the bar when Barney ran into them.

"Shearing did good," Shostakov grunted as he unscrewed the glass vials. He was wearing heavy latex gloves as a precaution against any splashes. "Bachman must be getting tired. This is sloppy. One power source, no backup systems, but still nasty as ever. If this would have gone off, we would have carried this shit back to camp in our lungs and poisoned everyone."

Shostakov capped the first bottle and handed it to Kuei for examination. The smaller man held it up to the sunlight and swore in Cantonese followed by two other dialects. "Three of these. No one for kilometers would avoid exposure. He's desperate, Barney. We need to find him," Kuei hissed in agreement, passing Barton the vial.

Barton spat in the dirt as he tucked the vial into a vest pocket. "Finish disarming this bitch, and pack it up. We're heading back home. No more of this taking potshots at wannabe terrorists shit. Shearing's proved himself. We have a shooter. As soon as New York has a location, we take Bachman. I promise, Shen."

“Fucking finally,” Shostakov sighed happily, passing over the last two sealed vials. “No more hide and seek with that rat. And then we can leave this damned desert and wash the sand out of our asses.”

“No one wants to think about your ass, Sasha,” Kuei said flatly as he stowed the other two vials in his own vest. “Save that for Joey.” Shostakov replied in Russian with descriptive hand gestures. So neither Barton nor Kuei understood. They both smirked anyways. Nothing riled the Russian like a reminder of the times he got drunk and overly familiar with their reserved British medic.

Chapman had Shearing thoroughly cowed. Shearing was crouching on the floor, pressed up against Chapman’s legs instead of in a seat. Chapman seemed bemused by the idiosyncrasy and glared in warning at the rest of the team. Barton crawled into the shotgun position with Kuei taking the wheel again. Shostakov dragged the IED into the Humvee behind him, setting it on the seat between him and Chapman. Chapman grimaced when he saw the device. “Fucking Hydra. How bad is this one?” Shostakov shrugged. “Shit,” Chapman mumbled. “When are we going to put a bullet in that cunt’s head?”

“Soon,” Barton reassured the medic. “This one could have taken out civilians and the base as well as us. We’re done playing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the wonderful Julorean.
> 
> The clockwork/steampunk IED was based on the vibe I got from Hydra weapons in Cap 1.


	59. As the Night Wind Wails

“Doctor Shearing,” Agent Coulson knocked politely on the doorframe of Marta’s new ‘lab’. The new building they’d moved her to was actually very nice. She had a studio apartment with actual windows not covered by bars and access to the well groomed garden in the central courtyard. Her ‘lab’ was currently just a drafting table, a desk with a computer and no internet connection, several, empty steel filing cabinets, and a whiteboard. It was across the hall from her apartment and had large windows that looked out over the courtyard. Marta had been typing at the computer, reconstructing what she could remember about the technical details of Outcome.

“Just a moment, Agent,” she murmured as she typed, “I just need to finish this formula.” Coulson waited quietly for her to finish. “Thank you.” She turned and looked his sympathetic smile, flinching as she checked the calendar on the wall. There was a red circle around the number. Her least favorite day of the week.

She shrugged off the blanket she wore while she was typing to deal with the AC vent just above the desk. Then she followed Coulson to the elevator. “Where is he this week?”

Coulson was noncommittal, blandly murmuring, “Back at the main base. He’s safe.” Coulson put his hands casually behind his back as he watched her. “How are you doing yourself, Doctor?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking Emma?” Marta replied acridly before catching herself. “Sorry. I… I’ve been better.” She closed her eyes and steeled herself for the hopefulness in Aaron’s voice. He seemed to actually believe he was back to being a soldier, albeit a married soldier. Every time they talked, he was reassuring. Like something out of Lifetime movie about military families. Each time she listened to him say ‘When I get home’ it was little harder to fake the lightness in her own voice.

“Marta,” Coulson said gently, “this isn’t fair to either of you. I know. But he’ll be home soon.”

Marta bit her lip and looked at the reflective surface of the elevator doors. She didn’t have the heart to tell Coulson that was what she was afraid of. Her calls no longer took place in a concrete room. Instead, Coulson took her to a glass office on the first floor. The bottom floor of the building was all offices filled with modern styled furniture and prints of abstract artwork. There never seemed to be anyone working, just like there never seemed to be anyone in the courtyard. Marta was almost used to the quiet now.

She sat at the desk where the satellite phone waited, twisting her ring as Coulson dialed. Her ring was starting to irritate the skin at the base of her finger from how often she played with it. When she’d been pregnant, her hands had swollen enough she hadn’t been able to remove the ring but not enough to be painful. Now her ring slid easily on and off, and she couldn’t stop fiddling with it.

Coulson passed her the phone, and she pressed it to her ear in time to hear Aaron say, “Hey, Doc.”

“Hey,” Marta forced out, her mouth suddenly dry. “Hey, Aaron.”

“How are you?” he asked, always the second sentence out of his mouth. “Are you okay? Like the new apartment?”

Marta closed her eyes, hearing the raw eagerness in his voice. He wanted her to be pleased. “It has windows,” she replied honestly. “And a room for me to work in. It’s a nice change.”

“Good.” The ferocity in Aaron’s voice was the soft kind. “And how are you?”

Marta was okay six and half days a week. She was a prisoner of a mysterious organization who knew far too much about Outcome and planned never to let her live free again, but they were giving her back her work a bit at a time. And they hadn’t taken anything she really needed to keep herself content. The bad half-day was after hearing Aaron asking her honestly if anything was wrong, if he could help. “I’ll be okay,” she said thickly. Aaron wouldn’t believe her if she said ‘fine’. “They’re letting me start work again, with supervision. But it’s something to do. Emma’s talking about getting a cat for me.

“What are you going to name it?” Aaron asked.

“I don’t know,” Marta admitted. “I suppose I’ll decide when I see it.” She inhaled carefully. “How’re you?”

“Dumb fuck has a suicide wish,” someone in the background shouted before Aaron could respond. Marta jerked at the reminder they weren’t alone.

Aaron groaned. He covered the phone and shouted, “Shut the fuck up, Billy!” When he unmuffled the phone, he sighed, “Sorry, light of my life. It was a long day. I’m fine. I promise.”

Stupidly, Marta started crying. “Aaron, I need you to be okay. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Hey, don’t do that, Doc. Don’t cry. I’m always careful. You know I’m always careful.” Aaron was babbling, near frantic.

“Yes, I know. Sorry, I’m still a bit hormonal,” Marta sniffed, smearing her tears across her face. “I know you can take care of yourself.” But he was also capable of just stopping. He’d just stopped when she was dying in a bathroom. Aaron needed goals. Getting away from Outcome, making sure he stayed himself, protecting Marta. If he stopped trying again, he’d die.

Aaron made soothing noises. Even though they didn’t work like they used to. With the distance between, Marta could hear how perfect he was, the perfect husband. No ambition of his own outside their relationship. No demands she had to push herself to meet. Just socially awkward enough she felt like they were kindred spirits. Fury was right. Outcome had done a good job with Five. She had done a good job.

When Marta was calm, she asked Aaron about his new team to fill in the empty remaining two minutes. There wasn’t anything else to talk about anymore. She wouldn’t tell Aaron about her work, dredge up the old, bad blood between them. He didn’t want to worry her with the details of the work he was doing somewhere where she could sometimes hear artillery in the background. He described a group of men who couldn’t be real with forced brightness. She wanted to tell him after almost two years of marriage, she knew when he was lying.

“Hey,” he said as Coulson flashed Marta a ten second warning, “Love ya.”

“Yeah, I know,” Marta said quickly as Coulson took the phone. She’d stopped saying ‘I love you’ two phone calls ago.

Coulson gave her a knowing look as she reached for her wedding band. “Ring a bit tight, Doctor Shearing?”

“Are you married, Agent Coulson?” she asked tightly. “Kids?”

Coulson shook his head. “There’s a cellist. But kids were never in the picture for me.”

“Me either. Aaron was the one who wanted kids. In the state home - he grew up in the system you see - they let them watch daytime TV. All those old re-runs. Did Fury tell you he was eighteen when he went straight from the state home to the army? Then from the army to Outcome? He loves shitty old television - Leave it to Beaver, the Andy Griffith Show, Gunsmoke, Cheyenne. Not that he got to watch much of it after he left Nevada. My husband learned what it meant to be in love from fifties sitcoms and black and white cowboys. It’s a lot to live up to.” She swallowed and met Coulson’s gaze squarely. “I make a very bad Maureen O’Hara, Agent. He’s the only one who doesn’t see that.”

With something like sympathy, Coulson murmured, “Ahh.” He put a careful hand on her shoulder with a reassuring squeeze. “Sometimes we don’t know who we’re capable of being, Doctor Shearing, until someone shows us.”

Marta snorted. “I’m closer to fifty than not, Agent Coulson. I’m not some idiot twenty-something trying to find my way. The love of a good man isn’t going to change me for the better. Especially not the love of a little boy who wasn’t allowed to grow-up before he was told to be a killer.” Her fingers curled into fists as she tried not to think of what her own little boy would have been if he’d lived. SHIELD would have hardly let an asset like Aaron’s son live a normal, peaceful life. Marta was only now starting to understand what a fate worse than death could really mean. “I’m just one more asshole using him. Along with you and the rest of SHIELD. And none of us are very remorseful, are we?”

Coulson didn’t say anything. Instead, he helped her to her feet like she was an old woman, and Marta felt every aching joint and the psychosomatic throb of a barren womb. She leaned into his grip, hand pressed to her lower belly, as they walked to the elevator. Coulson left her in apartment where she could at least stare at the clinically white walls instead out of a window. She lost track of time, legs curled under her on the couch.

The door opened after a perfunctory knock. Marta jerked her head over in time to see Emma, dressed in jeans and a jacket instead of scrubs, enter. “Agent Coulson said you were having a bad day,” the nurse explained briskly as she pulled a black, nylon bag over her head and hung her jacket on a hook in the wall. “I just stopped by to check in. How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better. I called Aaron this morning,” Marta sighed. “It’s not getting easier.”

Emma looked less like she suspected Marta was bleeding and hiding the wound somehow. “Ah. Marta, you really should think about talking to someone. Even with the anti-depressants, you’re worrying me. And I don’t think ending up under psychiatric observation will help with anything.”

“I don’t want to give SHIELD any more leverage over me, Emma,” Marta sighed.

Emma frowned, tapping one finger against her hip as she thought. “You trust me, right, Marta? You know I take my patient privacy seriously. Especially since we know you’re not a danger to yourself or others.” Marta tipped her head in cautious agreement. “I’ll speak to Doctor Smith-Jones about finding a contractor, someone who has clearance but isn’t a SHIELD employee. I’ll vet their credentials myself. Then will you consider it?”

Marta stared at the nurse, the press of the younger woman’s mouth, the grim determination in her eyes. “Okay,” she agreed quietly. “I will. But you have to tell me one thing, Emma.” Emma nodded, relieved. “Why are you here? You’re a damn good nurse, but not a case manager. You’re too young. You’ve done psych rotations and some basic social work, but that’s not your specialty. So why are you in my apartment?”

“I asked to be your case worker,” Emma said, chin jutting out stubbornly. More gently she added, “The entire time you were in the hospital, I was the only one you asked to call you by your name instead of your title. I couldn’t just leave you without a support system when you were released. Or you’d end up right back in the hospital.”

Hesitantly, Marta stood, walked over, and carefully embraced the other woman. “Thank you. You’re a great case manager. If you think I need to see a therapist, I’ll try.”

“Good,” Emma replied, hugging her back. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if you refused.” Both women laughed. If Marta was a bit hysterical, Emma wasn’t going to tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed by the wonderful Julorean.


	60. In the Night I

“Adelbrand Bachman,” Barton tossed the picture into the center of the makeshift table in his quarters. The man in the photo was old enough to look fragile. Despite his scowl, he could have been someone’s grumpy grandfather. “He’s a Nazi. That’s an honest-to-God Hitler Youth, Shearing. He and his little psycho Boy Scout buddies were assigned to Hitler’s R&D department, codename Hydra. Bachman was one of the crazies that went with Hydra when Schmidt and Hitler split in 1943.” Barton moved through the spiel quickly as he got Shearing up to speed on the real reason Team Delta was in Afghanistan. “Captain America took out Schimdt in nineteen forty-five. Hydra started falling about after that. SHIELD, helmed by Director Margaret Carter and Howard Stark, finished the majority of the mop up. Bachman managed to wiggle out of the dragnet. He’s been hiding out in Afghanistan and selling nasty surprises to the highest bidder since the Russo-Afghan War.”

Shearing picked up the photo carefully by the edges and examined it. “How old is this?”

“Six years old. The ATF caught a picture of him during an arms auction,” Barton sighed. “Can you use it?”

“So long as he hasn’t had any major plastic surgery, sure.” Shearing studied the photo closely. “It’s still safer if someone tags him for me. There’s too many ways to obscure a face to guarantee a shot in a restricted timeframe otherwise.”

Barton nodded, “Fuck. Yeah, I figured that.” He unrolled a tube of blueprints. “Bachman’s taken over an old mansion that dates back to when Afghanistan was still a British territory. We managed to get the original blueprints for the place, but we’ve got no idea what modifications he’s made. Still, even without mods, this fucker is built like the bastard child of a European style citadel and a rabbit warren. It’s why we’ve never tried to mount a frontal assault. Too many ways to get out.”

Shearing frowned, pulling a topographic map over to him. “This peak right here is the only spot with a line of sight over the whole property. It’s not an easy shot, but a sniper posted up there would have the best chance of targeting anyone leaving the house.”

“Exactly,” Barton nodded. “That’s where you’ll be. We’ll be acting as the insertion team. Kuei or Stryker will tag Bachman for you. You’ll have to take the shot without a spotter. We need Shostakov on the ground with us.” Shearing shrugged, running his fingers across the blueprints. He nodded in acceptance. “Okay. Go ahead and get the rest of the guys. We’ve got some planning to do. Then stop by the mess tent and get dinner for all of us.”

“Sir,” Shearing replied obediently, pushing himself up from his crouch. He disappeared into the main barracks. “Barton wants you,” he informed the others. “Billy, I need a moment.”

Stryker winced and nodded to the others, hanging back with Aaron. “I’m sorry about yesterday, kid. But you need to be more careful.”

Shearing frowned. “I’d prefer if no one spoke to my wife about my job again, but it’s fine. I had a stupid question.” His cheeks flushed a dull red.

“Go ahead,” Stryker replied, lowering his voice. “I won’t tell.”

Checking one last time they had what little privacy their living arrangements allowed, Shearing murmured, “Barton said Bachman was a ‘Hitler Youth’ and something about boy scouts. What the hell is he talking about?”

Stryker sighed. “If I ever meet your high school teachers, we’re going to have a long discussion about ‘No Child Left Behind’. The Nazis youth recruiting program was kind of like a twisted version of the boy scouts and girl scouts. They were called Hitler Youth. The girls learned how to be moms and the boys mostly went into the military. By the time Hitler was in power, it was pretty much mandatory for kids to be a part of it unless they were the kind of people the Nazis were killing.” He considered everything else he could remember from History Channel specials, but that was really all he had.

“Thanks.” Shearing knocked his shoulder softly into Stryker’s, affection maybe. It was the closest Stryker had ever seen the boy come to companionable behavior without prompting.

*****

In the end, it was a HALO insertion several kilometers from the mansion where Bachman was hiding out on the night of the new moon. Satellite surveillance had confirmed Bachman was in residence. 

Shearing turned out to be a good jumper, streaking playfully through the air for one of the most graceful landings Barton had ever seen. The others landed safely, but without the level of ease Shearing showed as he stripped off his jump harness. Clint had been the same way. He’d always said the next best thing to flying was jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. There had been more to Barney’s little brother’s nickname than just Clint’s shooting.

“Christ,” Chapman muttered, staring up the decaying sandstone slides and boulders that littered the steep slope. “Are you sure you want to go over the peak, kid?”

Shearing breathed deeply as he packed his HALO gear back into the jump pack. “It’s the only way I’ll make the time table. Don’t worry about me.” He tossed off a sloppy salute, pulled the straps of his pack tight to his body. His rifle, not his Bucky but the Barrett XM500, was tucked into the rifle sheath along his spine. There hadn’t been time to import Stark’s new ultra-light .50 caliber rifle, but Shearing had brought his Stark scope. He had a nine millimeter buckled low on his thigh in case he needed something for closer quarters. With a feral grin, he pulled his shemagh over his nose and mouth and started running up the slope in almost inhuman bounds. His night vision goggles were still high on his head.

“To be young again,” Stryker groaned, watching Shearing. “My knees would kill me if I tried that.”

“Forget your knees,” Kuei muttered respectfully. “That’s a fifty pound pack, and he’s not even kicking down rocks without night vision.” He shouldered his own pack, shaking his head.

The rest of the men were taking an easier path, coming around the side of the peak at the same elevation as the mansion. It was a long, nerve-wrackingly exposed hike. They were running on the assumption that the darkness would be concealment enough to make it to the ragged shrub lands surrounding the mansion where they would hunker down for the day. No one was sure what security systems Bachman had on his hideout. Hydra was unpredictable in what new, bizarre technology they would employ. Team Delta’s best bet, from hard earned experience, was to strike hard and fast and trust their shooter to neutralize the target on the flip side.

They maintained radio silence through the day until dusk when the infiltration was scheduled. Barton got on the horn first, whispering, “Archangel, are you in position? Over.”

“Ten-four, Delta Actual,” Shearing responded promptly. He wasn’t even out of breath. So he’d been in position long enough to get comfortable. “I’m ready on your go. Over.”

“Damn,” Stryker muttered to Shostakov. “Boy can haul.”

Barton blinked. They’d built an hour cushion into the initial timeline since Shearing had to take the long way around the opposite side of the mountain and up to get his position. “Archangel,” Barton asked cautiously, “how long have you been in position? Over.”

“Two hours, sir,” Shearing said, confused. “Over.”

Keui sucked at his front teeth in surprise. “He must have gone straight over the peak. Or he didn’t sleep.”

Chapman smirked. “Hard bastard went over the peak, I bet.” He stepped back into the pack Shostakov was holding up for him. As the medic, he was carrying not only his share of ammunition and survival gear but the full medical kit. It meant he had the second heaviest pack in the company and a good twenty pounds less muscle than Shostakov, who carried the plastic explosives, to handle it with. He could handle it, but he never turned down help. He did bat the Russian’s hands away and tightened and buckled everything himself.

“You can ask him yourself once we’ve bagged Bachman,” Barton said sharply, ending the conversation. “How does the box look, Billy?”

“Quiet,” Stryker murmured as he scanned the mansion with a night vision scope. “Doesn’t look like they know we’re the new neighbors.”

Kuei checked his suppressor was screwed on tightly. “We should go say hello then. It’s only polite.”

Team Delta advanced on the mansion slowly. It wasn’t really a compound. Chapman whispered over the radio, “Archangel, there’s someone home. Twenty meters to my three o’clock.” The sentry who’d Chapman happened upon dropped to the ground with a quiet thud. “Thanks from Delta Four, Archangel,” Chapman murmured as he crawled forward.

“Welcome,” Shearing replied over the radio. “Second hostile at your ten o’clock, Delta Four, sixty meters.” He paused and added, “Same hostile directly ahead, Delta Three.”

Stryker whispered, “This is Delta Three. Take him out, Archangel.” The second sentry of the night dropped. Kuei radioed in the next sentry, and Shearing put the masked Hydra soldier down with as much ease as he had the first two. The perimeter alarms didn’t go off until Delta breached the manor. Every sentry had been dropped before any warning had gotten out.

Kuei introduced himself with two flashbangs through the side entrance the sentries used. Stryker followed behind him, diving for the computer bank that ran the cameras and security systems. He shot the man manning the system point blank in the chest before kicking the corpse to the side. The world had lit up with screaming claxons and bright lights illuminating the compound. Stryker plunged it back into still darkness. He pushed the USB he’d pulled from his vest into a port and waited for the virus to do its work. 

Shostakov and Barton had entered from the other side of the old mansion, closer to the mountain, with Chapman. They were the hunters, waiting for Stryker and Kuei to flush Bachman towards them. It was the smoothest insertion they’d ever had when Hydra was involved. Barton’s nerves were on edge. Stryker had disabled the mansion’s internal communications when he’d accessed the security terminal. So the remaining security was disorganized and easy pickings for Team Delta in the dark.

Except every man they came across was dressed in security BDUs and wasn’t anywhere near old enough to have shaken hands with Hitler. They moved from the wide open, decrepit hallways where the gilt had peeled off the crown molding and the only furniture was decaying beneath grey sheets that had once been white. There were no signs of habitation besides the bodies Delta left in their wake. 

Barton got on the radio, “Delta Three, this is Delta Actual. Where the fuck is the package? This place is a goddamn mausoleum. There’s no indication of private quarters or a lab.”

“Stand by,” Stryker ordered. He flipped through the tabs on the computer screen trying to find a schematic more recent than the historical blue prints that Delta had used to plan the infiltration. He made do with a primitive schematic showing the locations of the cameras. “There is a basement not on the original plans. Suspect package location is in basement. I’ll lead you in when you’re ready.”

Barton groaned. “Go ahead, Delta Three.” He looked back over his shoulder at Shostakov and Chapman. “Brace yourself gentlemen. He’s got a secret underground bunker too.”

“Bloody buggering fuck,” Chapman growled succinctly.

Shostakov grunted, “I take lead.” He was the best at spotting Hydra traps and disarming them. Chapman fell back further. He wouldn’t be any use if a trap caught him as well. Barton stayed behind Shostakov’s shoulder. If the big Russian had to deal with a trap, Barton would engage any hostiles in front of them.

As Stryker lead them through the maze of dusty rooms, Barton got the radio again, “Archangel this is Delta Actual, the package may make a break for it. Keep your eyes sharp.”

“Yes, sir,” Shearing replied, voice mild even through the crackle of the radio.

“This is a trap,” Shostakov observed as they wound through the maze of sitting rooms and hallways into one of the internal rooms where Stryker directed Shostakov through a doorway concealed in a closet.

Barton huffed at a grim chuckle was he saw the crude skull and snakes emblem craved into the side of the access ramp that declined off into darkness not even the night vision could penetrate. “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Chapman sighed, “Americans. Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’entrate. If you’re going to quote Dante, do it right for fucks sake.” He lifted up his goggles to see what was interfering with them. In the absolute black of the tunnel with no ambient light, the night vision goggles were useless. “Does anyone see a light switch?”

The three men tucked the night vision devices away and switched to tactical flashlights. The ramp itself was a simple, arched concrete structure that continued at a steep but walkable gradient fifty yards to a vault-like door. The doors were cracked open, but there was no light behind them. The three men progressed cautiously down the tunnel. If there was a booby trap, this bottleneck would be the perfect place for it. The walls were smooth. The floor was uniform. As they approached the doors Barton finally put into words what was so eerie about the poorly lit, utterly boring hall. “That door has a Judas hole.” The significance of it hit him a second later, “It’s pointing the wrong way, Sasha!”

Shostakov swore and charged forward. The strange door swung silently shut before he could jam it open. Chapman tried to fall back and shouted, “Fuck!” as a steel door slammed down behind them.

Barton was on the radio. “Delta Three, this is Delta Actual. We’re trapped in the tunnel to the basement. There’s a door behind us and another one in front of us. Sasha’s trying to bust it down, but we’re fucked if you don’t get us an exit.”

“Delta Actual this is Archangel, I’m coming to assist,” Shearing barked.

“Negative, Archangel, if the package is going to make a break for it, it’s now.” Barton glanced back at Chapman, who examining the steel door for any way to disable it. At the vault-like door, Shostakov already had the explosives out and was muttering to himself as he wired it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean.
> 
> Also, yay, Clint. Finally.


	61. In the Night II

Aaron bit the inside of his cheek as he settled back down at his scope. He kept off the radio as Stryker and Barton went back and forth trying to figure out how to get what sounded like two very large steel doors open. There was no more movement outside the mansion. “Fuck it,” Aaron muttered. He had a bad feeling about this whole place. This Victorian style structure didn’t belong in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. It stood out like an open wound, still raw and gashed into topography not suited for it. If he tipped his head into the cool, night breeze, Aaron had the fanciful thought he could still smell the blood of the poor bastards who’d no doubt died cutting out the plain where the mansion sat. The flat was no natural formation.

Whispering on the wind and strange lights had always been part and parcel of Aaron’s experience in the Afghani mountains. Aaron didn’t believe in ghosts. Byer had been very clear on that point. But the mountains weren’t a place for anyone who wasn’t Afghani. Aaron still stepped lightly and didn’t trust them in the least. That’s why he ignored Barton’s order to stay. He left his pack tucked in a crevasse and brought only his weapons and what ammunition he could fit in his tac vest.

He kept low to ground, looking out into the dark. He had a night scope which he used to check any motion. There were a few hardy hares but nothing human sized. 

Stryker had found the controls to one of the doors, but the computer was locking him out. Shostakov was rigging the second door with det cord. The three men would easily survive the blast, but, in an enclosed space, it would be like a flashbang going off. They would be disoriented and have trouble hearing. Easy pickings for anyone behind either door with an automatic weapon.

Then something caught Aaron’s eye, someone standing up and silhouetting themselves against the sky. “All, this is Archangel, are any of you outside?” he whispered as he dragged his rifle into position and pressed his eye to the scope. He received puzzled negatives from all his team mates. Aaron took the shot. Then shot to his feet and sprinted forward, leaving the rifle behind and drawing his pistol. There were three men. One was dead. Aaron had blown his face apart with an awkwardly angled headshot. Aaron shot the second uniformed soldier with a neat double tap followed up by a head shot. The last was the old man in the photos Barton had all but rubbed Aaron’s nose in.

In heavily accented English Bachman spoke, throwing up his hands in a gesture of surrender, “Pliss, do not shoot!” Aaron hesitated for a moment, remembering the day he’d realized what Byer was. But the Laotian civilians he’d killed were innocents. This man was literally a Nazi, and Aaron could still recite the Rasar’s stories about the Warsaw Uprising from memory. He shot Bachman execution style. Then he held down the mute button on his throat mic.

“The closest thing I ever had to a mother was a second generation Polish Jew from Israel, asshole.” Aaron safed his pistol and slid it back into the holster. “Like hell I wasn’t going to shoot.” The words were a pure bravado, but it made him feel better, like it was a righteous kill instead of murder. He removed his finger from the mute button. “Delta Actual, this is Archangel. Package is wrapped.” There was no other movement in the area as he went back to retrieve his rifle.

“Archangel, this is Delta Actual. Verify that.” Barton ordered harshly.

Aaron paused. “Sir?”

Barton sounded impatient as he ordered, “Cut out his heart or cut off his fucking head. I don’t care. Just confirm the package you wrapped isn’t a Hydra lab rat or an LMD, Archangel.”

Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, Aaron grimaced. He hated butchering people, but there was no Jason to save him this time. “Understood, Delta Actual.” The knife he’d been issued was British made, a plain looking fixed blade. It was a sturdy, practical blade. Aaron knelt next to Bachman’s body and grabbed the dead man’s hair, tipping the head back. The bullet wound had blown off the side much like a reverse of the wound that had killed the Rasar. Aaron swallowed hard and started sawing. If Barton wanted a trophy. Aaron would fucking give him one. Plus, throats were mostly made of soft tissue, and heads came off easily enough if you got the blade between the vertebrae.

Chapman gave Barton a dirty look. “That was unnecessary. Poor lad didn’t sign on for corpse mutilation.”

“That dumbshit has done worse without orders,” Barton waved off the medic. “Stop bitching. You knew we were going to need confirmation. Sasha, how’s the door looking?”

Shostakov grunted in annoyance, still deciding on where to start the blast. “You and Joey should get into the far left corner,” he finally decided. “This will be unpleasant.”

“Delta Actual this is Delta Two,” Kuei said over the radio, uneasy. “We have possible incoming hostiles.”

“Delta Two this is Delta Actual, clarify, now.” They didn’t need any more complications. Barton started grinding his teeth.

“I hear planes,” Kuei replied frankly, “But there’s nothing on the radar.”

Shostakov stopped waffling and finished orienting the initiator section of the det cord. Chapman’s mouth went even thinner as he crouched down and tried to shove his body between Barton and the wall. Barton let him since Chapman would be patching up any side effects of their hasty exit. The reason he’d kept the British man on, despite the personality clashes and Chapman’s own requests to get the hell away from ‘you mad wankers’, was the medic’s sense of self-preservation. Most medics at Team Delta’s level didn’t have the good sense to understand their heroics were a liability to the unit. “We’re blowing the door, Delta Two. You and Delta three get the fuck out of this crypt. Archangel, belay your retrieval orders. Stay up on the mountain.”

There was no acknowledgement. Barton didn’t have time to repeat his orders as Shostakov came running back and dropped down into a crouch next to Barton and Chapman. The door blew outwards into the basement. It was deafening and knocked the wind out of Barton when he exhaled at the wrong moment. With his hands over his ears and cushioned by two bodies, Chapman was the first on his feet moving forward, confident he was the least damaged by the blast.

Even so, Chapman’s ears were ringing enough he didn’t register the second explosion from above until Kuei shouted, “Man down! Man down!” There was third explosion that shook the whole building. “Delta Two to all. This place is coming down up here. Delta Three is down. He’s not getting back up.” There was a weary sort of finality in Kuei’s voice that made it over the radio.

“Fucking booby traps were on a time delay,” Barton forced out, feeling ill. “Fuck!” It fit with Bachman’s profile though. The man was smart. He tended to fold and run rather than fight. It wasn’t the first time he drew in a team until they were too far in to escape when Bachman dropped his facilities on top of them. This was just the longest time between the traps going off and the infiltration yet.

Shostakov grabbed Barton by the straps on his vest and threw him forward. Chapman dove after them, his lanky frame letting him pull ahead of the two stockier soldiers. At first, it looked like he was trying to outpace them. Then Chapman skidded and fell through the floor. The fall wasn’t very long, punctuated by a high-pitched yelp of pain as the medic impacted. 

“Joey?” Barton shouted.

“Broke my bloody leg,” Chapman snarled back, apparently from beneath the floor. The smooth concrete showed no indication of the pit trap which the medic had fallen in. “The floor in here’s uneven. There’s no way to land without breaking something.”

“Joey,” Shostakov said cautiously, “we can’t see you. You fell through floor.” He glanced at Barton uncertainly. The house was still coming down around them, and the only way out was forward. The dim light that permeated the whole lab didn’t illuminate enough detail to spot any further traps. Going forward was just as dangerous as going back.

The radio crackled and Barton jumped. “Delta Actual, this is Archangel. I’m coming for you. Don’t shoot.”

“Archangel, belay that. This floor is a murder house,” Barton barked.

“I know,” Shearing said absently. “I just dodged a bunch of poison needles coming out of the wall.” He didn’t sound too bothered be the sheer absurdity of his statement. “Go ahead and prep Delta Four for transport. I can see you now.”

“How the fuck can he see anything in this?” Barton growled rhetorically as he and Shostakov crept forward towards the place where Chapman had vanished. They used the butts of their rifles to test each step. Shostakov’s rifle was the first to go through the floor a half inch.

Shostakov lowered the rifle down carefully. “Can you see, Joey?”

“Yeah,” Chapman sighed. “It’s about three meters deep where I’m at. Drop down a rope and I can get myself out.”

Shostakov dropped a rifle sling down and waited as Chapman grunted in pain and strap went taut. Climbing with his good leg, one hand, and with Shostakov’s able assistance, Chapman made it out of the pit trap with his pain noises mostly muffled behind clenched teeth, swearing in a low monotone. When he was out of the pit he pulled up his pant leg and examined his damaged leg. It was already starting to swell and streak with bruising. He hooked his heel on the edge of the floor and pushed himself backwards to pull his leg straight. Then he reached into his pack and extracted an air splint, wrapped it around his leg, and inflated it. His mouth was thin-lipped and white as he finished.

Shearing trotted out of the gloom and leapt across the pit trap like he could see it. His eyes lingered on the plastic around Chapman’s leg. “How bad?”

“I’m not going to be running to the rendezvous.” Chapman dragged himself up the wall to his feet. He held his leg out an awkward angle. “How did you make this far?”

With a shrug, Shearing held out his hand to Chapman. “I figured out how to see the traps. Just step where I step.” The medic leaned heavily against Shearing, startled at the ease which with the smaller man bore his weight.

Shearing moved confidently through the lab. He didn’t say anything, just expected everyone to follow. He took a circuitous route around the bones of strangely modified lab equipment and empty cages. None of them looked too closely at anything. Everything smelled vaguely like must and old blood even through the heavy stench of spending two days in the desert without showers.

At the other side of the lab was a staircase that led to a hatch in the ceiling. The hatch was wide open, revealing a sky full of stars and flickering orange light. Chapman eyed the stairs and groaned. “Don’t worry, I can carry you up,” Shearing offered. Chapman’s pained expression went mulish.

“You two can duke it out down here.” Barton led the way up the stairs, rolling his eyes. Shostakov was right behind him. Barton turned back to see if Chapman was going to give in and let Shearing help. The medic was grudgingly maneuvering himself onto Shearing’s back. Shearing was preparing to lift when the floor exploded in front of him, blowing the stairwell out of existence.

Shearing flew backwards, and despite the dark, Barton could see the clear blue of his eyes. The shock on his face was eerily reminiscent of Clint when a guidewire had snapped and sent Barney’s little brother tumbling to the end of the safety tether. Barton, caught in the memory, lunged for Shearing before jerking to a sharp halt as Shostakov grabbed the back of his jacket.

Chapman screamed hoarsely. It was loud in the odd the silence. It hadn’t been an explosion that collapsed the stairwell, despite the fact all signs pointed to one. Neither the medic nor the sniper were visible anymore benath the slabs of concrete and twisted steel. Shostakov and Barto pulled out flashlights to search the rubble as the collapse had killed the emergency lights in the lab. “Joey!” Shostakov shouted anxiously into the dark. “Shearing?”

“We’re alive,” Shearing called back raggedly. “Chapman’s unconscious, and his leg is fucked worse. Also, my rifle barrel’s bent. Fuck.”

“Can you make it out with him?” Barton called back, eyeing the debris warily.

There was silence then the harsh sound of concrete sliding over concrete. Someone, Shearing, yelped. “Not this way,” Shearing said grimly. “I might be able to make it through, but not with Chapman.” His voice was close, like he’d found away to climb up.

Shostakov cleared his throat pointedly, looking at his watch. They were so far behind schedule, the best Barton could do was send a rescue party. “Look, get yourselves out if you can. We’ll go the rendezvous and radio in for a rescue team with equipment. Turn off your radio. Turn it back on every four hours for twenty minutes starting at the top of the hour. We’ll contact you for your location so we can extract you and Chapman.”

“Yes, sir,” Shearing called back. His voice was too flat to be real nonchalance, but he’d come down from his perch, against orders, because he was worried about the team. He was resourceful and knew Afghanistan. Shearing was actually best suited for protecting Chapman until Barton could get a jaws of life into this godforsaken shithole. At least, that’s what the soldier told himself as he and Shostakov meet up with Kuei, jogging to make their pickup point on time.

Aaron slid down the concrete slab he’d climbed, away from the cool night breeze. He let himself land in a pile of arms and legs. Chapman was still where Aaron had laid him out in the recovery position. There hadn’t been any blood or obvious head trauma. Aaron suspected the man had passed out from the pain of his broken leg being shifted. The air splint had deflated, and Chapman’s leg bulged unnaturally where the broken bone had shifted to try and poke its way out. Luckily there was no blood, so it didn’t look like the bone had pushed through the skin.

Still, Aaron knew pain made him pretty pukey. He didn’t want Chapman suffocating while coming to. There was starlight filtering down through the rubble but not enough for Aaron to see more than silhouettes. He’d turned on the flashlight clipped to his tac vest to examine Chapman initially. He’d turned it off to make contact with Barton, since he didn’t want to risk visible light up top where it might be seen for miles.

Tonguing the top of his mouth, Aaron wasn’t surprised to find his palette tacky and spit not likely to wet it anytime soon. Dehydration and an adrenaline crash were a bitch when combined. He was also starving. With a heavy sigh, Aaron crawled over to Chapman’s side. He turned his flashlight back on and went to work.

The air splint was a total loss. Several of the cells had been torn open. Aaron cut it off and went old school with a piece of wood he found in the rubble and broke down to size. He tied the splint in place with the gauze and the spare bootlaces he kept tucked in the top of his boots, wrapped around the knife sheathes. Chapman woke as Aaron pulled his leg straight. The medic snarled in pain, sitting up then falling down due to the awkward angle.

Aaron started lashing the British soldier’s leg to the wood while the other man cursed and kicked with his good leg. Luckily, the medic had snapped back to full awareness and was just cross from the pain, not fighting Aaron’s ministrations. Aaron finished quickly. Then helped Chapman sit up and examine the splint. “Pretty good for a rush job,” Chapman said grudgingly. “What the bloody hell happened?”

“No idea, but it took out the staircase, and we’re stuck. Barton, Shostakov, and Kuei made a run for it. They said they were bringing back help.” Aaron pulled his canteen – it was full to keep it from sloshing loudly - and offered it to Chapman.

“They will,” Chapman reassured Aaron unscrewing the cap and sipping slowly. “SHIELD doesn’t burn agents without a warning first.” He drank until his head stop spinning and passed it back to Aaron. Aaron drained the canteen and put it back on his belt.

“Radio checks are every four hours, twenty minutes from the top of the hour. Barton will make first contact.” Aaron reached up and turned off his radio. Chapman mirrored the action. “You good?”

Chapman grimaced. “Good enough. I’m going to take something and try to sleep out the worst of this.” He dry swallowed three pills and eased himself back to the ground. Aaron switched off his flashlight to save the battery. “Put your hand on my shoulder,” Chapman ordered, impatient with Aaron’s protective ball. Every time he shifted, the medic’s nerves spiked since all he could see was black. “I need to know where you are to sleep.” He couldn’t see Aaron, but the other soldier was obviously hesitant from the soft scratching of cloth as he moved closer to Chapman’s side. “I don’t bite.”

Aaron carefully laid his hand on the medic’s shoulder, curling his fingers in the fabric. Chapman shifted closer, so his arm bumped Aaron’s hip. Now when Aaron shifted, Chapman knew it was just his squadmate. He breathed through the throbbing that seemed to ripple through his entire body. Aaron responded to Chapman’s pain by tapping his finger against the medic’s neck. His own breathing matched the rhythm. The noise and rhythm were hypnotic. Chapman matched it in just a few minutes. His shoulders relaxed as he drifted into a meditative state. Aaron nearly dozed. His finger kept tapping as he tried to quiet his own anxiety. Every one of his instincts said to move rather than wait for rescue. 

In his experience, rescue never came.


	62. Is there Life on Mars?

At first the rumble seemed like it was just Shearing’s stomach. The lad was hungry, but he hadn’t said anything. They were dehydrated even after finishing Shearing’s second canteen. Chapman was reluctant to start on his own canteens until he could sit up without biting the inside of his mouth into hamburger.

Then it happened again. This time dust drifted down from the ceiling when the rumble cut out. Something cracked and collapsed. Shearing curled over Chapman protectively as debris sprinkled down. There was a lot more light coming through the gaps in the rubble that illuminated the remains of the stairwell where the two soldiers were waiting. Other than the patches of bright light, it was gloomy and dusty. The heavy air made it easy enough to doze as the heat pressed down outside. Except now both of them were wide awake, waiting silently to see if the whole pile would collapse.

“Can you walk?” Shearing asked softly, kneeling up and scrambling towards the surface to see what was making the ground shake intermittently. He cautiously stuck his head through a gap that was much wider than the night before.

Chapman sat up carefully. “I can gimp along a bit, but me leg’s bullocksed.” His accent always thickened when he hurt.

Grimmer than usual, Shearing slid back down to floor. “Then I’ll carry you. We’ve got to go.”

“What is it?” Chapman demanded. Shearing shook his head, picking up Chapman’s pack and working the straps so it would fit against his chest. He set it to the side when he finished without elaborating. “Words, Yank,” Chapman snapped. “Use’em.”

Shearing hesitated, then said, “I think it might be a tank.” Chapman raised an eyebrow. The sniper knew that was too vague to be a real answer. “It doesn’t look like any tank I’ve ever seen, but it doesn’t look like anything else. It’s headed right for what’s left of the mansion.”

Chapman pulled himself upright using the rubble and hobbled over to Shearing’s side. “Then I guess I’m walking. Can you dig us out of here?”

Already climbing, Shearing grunted, “Hand me your gear. Then get the strap off my rifle, and pass the rifle up to me.” Chapman handed up his vest and his automatic rifle, only keeping his side arm to weigh him down, and grabbed the rifle by its damaged barrel. He unhooked the strap before shoving it butt first into Shearing’s reaching hand. Shearing used the rifle as a blunt instrument. He bashed the concrete slabs until chunks crumbled off. He’d braced himself on a piece of rebar with his other toe jammed in a crack Chapman could barely see. The medic wasn’t sure how Shearing was balancing himself against the powerful swings with the rifle. Masonry was falling down in an almost continuous patter of rock. The rubble shifted as the tank nearby ran over another boulder and dropped hard.

Shearing wedged the rifle in the rubble to hold open the gap he’d bashed open to be wide enough for a man to slip through. “Pack,” he ordered, reaching down from his precarious perch. Chapman handed up the bag. Shearing pushed the bag through the gap then swung himself around so he’d reversed footholds, had his back to the slab, and was facing Chapman.

“Bugger this for a lark,” Chapman muttered with no real intent. He knew the only way out was up. Tossing the rifle strap up to Shearing, the medic started climbing with one hand and his good leg as Shearing pulled. When Chapman was level with Shearing, the sniper reached down and laced his fingers into a stirrup. Chapman balanced himself against shoulders that were far stronger than he’d expected and let himself be boosted by his good leg until he could pull himself out through the gap and onto the broken concrete and dirt on the surface.

Shearing sprang up after him, shoulder pressing against Chapman’s ass to make sure the medic made it all the way through. The two men stayed low to the ground in the sunshine. Chapman struggled back into his tac vest, but Shearing kept the pack. The two men crawled for the copse of shrubby trees where Team Delta had originally planned to regroup.

Chapman’s useless leg thumped over the ground as he crawled. He gritted his teeth and tried not to think about the shooting pain. They made it to the dry crevasse that would be filled with water in the rainy season. Shearing rolled down first, then helped Chapman on the way down, so the medic wouldn’t have to bite his mouth bloody to keep from screaming. As Shearing slung Chapman’s pack across his chest, the medic realized what had been bothering him. “Where’s your kit?” Silently, Shearing pointed up at the mountain and the line of shiny, black tank things and ant-like men in black body armor between the mountain and the soldiers. “Shit.” Chapman slung his arm around Shearing’s shoulder and let himself be lifted. Shearing went with a piggyback carry. Chapman hooked his good leg around the man’s waist and his hands in the straps of the pack. The reason became clear as Shearing leaned forward to counterbalance and broke into a jog.

The medic wasn’t exactly a small man. He was lighter than Shostakov but not by much. The only one taller in Team Delta had been Stryker. Shearing was only a hand taller than Kuei and had just a couple of inches on Barton, but he didn’t falter under Chapman’s weight like Barton and Barton’s second sometimes did in drills. In fact, the steady pace that took them down the empty creek bed towards cover didn’t seem to strain Shearing very much at all.

They made it to the copse where there was a mapped water source. Shearing was sweating and panting when they finally ducked into cover, but he sounded the same when he pushed himself on his morning runs. Chapman refilled Shearing’s canteens, dropping in iodine tablets, while Shearing walked around to cool off.

Less than a half-hour later, they were moving again as a black tank appeared on the horizon. Shearing was moving at the same slow jog as before as he made a wide arc that would end with them back on the mountain where he was originally positioned. At the four hour mark, Chapman flipped on his radio and left it on for twenty minutes, but there was only dead air.

When the strangely clad soldiers black started up the mountain, it became clear there was no way to hide for any period of time. They moved again to the original drop off point where Shearing spread every piece of their gear on the ground and went through it. Chapman helped, looking for how they were being tracked. He was the one who found the strange chips which seemed welded into the battery of Shearing’s radio. When Shearing opened the second radio, it was compromised in the same way as well.

Shearing tried to pull the chips off the batteries. Even picking at it with his knife didn’t work. When the tanks were audible in the distance again, he put down the radio. “We’ve got two choices,” he said quietly enough Chapman had to lean in to hear. “We keep trying to dodge these assholes tracking until Barton gets back with help, or we make a break for it.”

Chapman looked down at the two dismantled radios then up at the brutally rocky landscape around them. There had been nothing at the last check-in but more silence. “Trying to make it out on foot is suicide with my bum leg, mate.” He didn’t say that the strange tanks and blackclad men were closing in faster each time. It was Scylla or Charybdis and no way of knowing when the cavalry was going to arrive.

“Not necessarily.” Shearing was hesitant, seeming to choose each work before he voiced it. “I speak the language. I know the country. We’ve got a map. I can get us back to Camp Bastion.”

“How am I going to get there?” Chapman pointed out wryly. “Are you going to carry me whole way, mate? It’s a nice thought…” He stuttered to halt when he saw Shearing’s tight mouth. “Bloody hell. That’s not physically possible, Aaron. Not over this terrain. You might think you can make it carrying a thirteen stone on top of the gear with just the supplies we have, but you’re body just isn’t built…”

Shearing interrupted, “I can carry you.” His jaw jutted out stubbornly. “Swear to Christ. I can get you out of here, Joey.” The painful earnestness on his face made Chapman sit back and think.

Finally the medic sighed, “Joe, not Joey. Only those wankers in Delta call me Joey. I don’t like it.”

“Aaron,” Shearing said with a small smile. “I’ll get you out of here, Joe.”

Chapman tightened the straps on his splint and smiled back darkly. “If you get me killed out here in Fuck-All, Hellhole, I’ll haunt you for the rest of your sodding life, Aaron.”

Aaron shrugged, “Fair.” He began repacking everything except the radios. Joe laid back and took a moment to collect himself. He was trusting his life to a convict. Granted, Aaron was well-behaved, well trained, and exceptionally stable if his marriage was anything to go by. It was really the wife that made Joe trust him. Aaron had a reason to go back to Camp Bastion and eventually home to the US. Back at the beginning, Barton had given the sniper a picture of a dark haired, dark eyed woman significantly older than Aaron as a bribe. Joe would beat his next paycheck it was currently somewhere on Aaron’s person. He sat up when Aaron tossed the map onto his chest. “Get our bearing out of here.”

Joe checked his compass and the map to figure out which direction Aaron would be walking and landmarks to orient themselves by. While he marked out a route on the map, Aaron stripped down to his t-shirt and sprinted off with the radios going further up the mountain opposite the direction they would be leaving. While he was gone, Joe opened up a ration. They hadn’t eaten for awhile. So he split the two meals between them and stowed the leftover packets.

Aaron got the breakfast food, an energy bar, a crappy pastry, and a drink mix Joe knew was blindingly red. Joe had noticed the sniper’s slight obsession with anything sweet. He’d never ask for more but would happily take anyone’s leftover anything with a high sugar content. Joe took the lunch menu, plowing through the fake Italian sandwich (which looked like it should be frozen and stuck in a toaster) between dumping the godawful tea powder in his mouth followed by a sip of water. It was still better than no tea at all, and the sandwich was surprisingly edible. There was even trail mix, which, of course, lacked Smarties since the military thought masochism was a virtue. Dessert was something for the pain, since the last thing Aaron needed was Joe too exhausted to fight.

When Aaron returned, he started pulling his gear back on like he was planning to scoop Joe up and haul ass all the way back to Camp Bastion. Joe threw the shitty pastry at his head. “Eat up, mate. You got a long haul in front of you. The bevvy’s some kind of gawdawful fake juice. Your cuppa, right?”

When Joe tossed over the drink packet, Aaron’s eyes lit up. “Yeah,” he said, emptying it into one of his canteens. Joe shuddered. Still, the sniper seemed happy to chug the vile liquid between big bites of pastry. Joe was a bit surprised when Aaron didn’t unhinge his jaw and just swallow the energy bar whole, considering the sniper almost took a bite of the foil trying to get to it.

“Bit peckish then?” Joe asked wryly as Aaron finished off the bar with slug of sugary, red punch that Joe could smell from a yard away. Aaron grunted and popped the piece of caffeinated gum that came with his meal into his cheek. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, the sniper handed his trash to Joe to be bundled away into the pack and ran through some basic stretches. They both took a moment to answer the call of nature into the bottle and Joe used a plastic bag for the solids. They didn’t want to leave anything behind that could be tracked. Then Aaron slung the pack over his chest and lifted Joe in fireman carry. They wouldn’t be stopping until they lost their pursuers.

By kilometer five, Joe was convinced Barton had no idea what was under the hood of his latest acquisition, metaphorically speaking. Aaron was a machine. The man ran with smooth, elastic strides, bouncing off boulders and skipping from toe hold to toe hold as they failed beneath him. The sniper had been holding back before, probably for Joe’s comfort. It hurt to be hauled along like an oversized sack of flour, and the speed hadn’t been necessary when they’d thought they could just hide.

Now, despite the discomfort, Joe was a bit breathless for another reason. He’d never ridden a horse. His family wasn’t posh, but solid, blue collar Manchester stock through and through. Horses were for public school pricks and Sloane Rangers, not the sons of shipwrights and starving artists. But Joe imagined riding a horse was a bit like this, if actually comfortable and bit faster, with the gritty desert wind in his face and his ears stinging from the airborne debris. Part of it was an illusion. Aaron, poor bastard, was running into the wind making it seem like they were moving more quickly. Most of it was the fact Aaron could run. The US Olympic triathlon team had missed out on a valuable asset when they let Aaron Shearing go black ops.

The painkillers were going to his head. Joe tried to focus on the passing landscape instead and spotted one of their landmarks. He dug his knee into Aaron a little. “Veer towards that peak at your three o’clock. We need to run tangent to the base to follow the valley out of here.” Aaron huffed and turned his body a little more dramatically as if to say ‘what did you think I was doing?’

“Oi, let me feel a bit less like dead weight, will ya?” Joe replied, nudging Aaron with an elbow. The sniper huffed again, but he sounded amused. Joe grinned. He was so used to Stryker and Barton filling the silence with bullshit, and Shostakov responding with a sharp aside, that the quiet was awkward. Aaron didn’t talk, even when he had breath he never seemed to have anything to say.

So Joe talked when he saw something worth mentioning. He compared the heat to Sandhurst and Manchester and went on a short rant on how, for some reason known only to God, he missed foggy days that didn’t have insurgents hiding in them. When Aaron had some spare oxygen, the sniper said said, “I’ve never been to England.” It was tacit approval at the distraction.

“UK or Britain if you must. Not England, mate, when you mean the whole island. It’s wet there. Cold too, every day but the summer. The food though, curry and sushi and all night breakfasts with homemade sausage. Ever had proper black pudding? If you get me out of this shit in one piece, I’ll take you for tea in Manchester, all properly northern cooking. It’ll fill out those ribs of yours.” Aaron hummed happily at the though. Joe nudged him again, friendly. “You’re a bit bookish right? There’s a museum back home that’s just the thing, the right kind of history. And footie. Gawd, I miss proper footie.”

“Never cared much for soccer,” Aaron offered helpfully.

Joe spent the rest of the nearly ten kilometers to the water source they would rest at explaining all the ways in which Aaron was wrong, followed by the actual rules for football since Aaron didn’t even know anything outside the pickup game rules. If Joe tossed in a bit of his own opinions on FIFA and modifications to the regs, Aaron didn’t know the game well enough to debate it.

The water source marked on the map was little more than a muddy pool beneath a rocky overhang on the steep side of the valley. The important thing was that it was sheltered, the low visibility, and the water was potable when treated. Joe was sore from being jostled over the points of Aaron’s shoulders again and again. He stood gratefully beneath the ledge, leaning on Aaron to keep his weight off his bad leg. Now that he could properly see the man, it was obvious the smooth ride had come at a cost. Aaron was flushed a dull red beneath his tan, and his skin was too dry for the amount of exertion.

“Sit down,” Joe barked. “Hydrate now, pure water, little sips.” Aaron obediently collapsed in place and pulled a canteen off his belt. Joe knelt awkwardly next to him. As Aaron sipped, obviously restraining himself to keep from gulping down the liquid and making himself sick, Joe worked off the pack and sniper’s vest and jacket. Aaron’s tan t-shirt was dark brown and rank with sweat. “This too,” Joe said gently. “We need to get you cooled off.”

“I’ll be fine.” Aaron’s voice was coarse, rasping with each word.

Joe snorted. “You ran a bit over a marathon carrying almost eighteen stone. You’re exhausted, dehydrated, and, for reasons known only to God, you’ve visibly lost five to seven pounds. I can’t walk, but I can take care of you, mate.” He put his hand on the back of Aaron’s neck. “Trust me. I can help you.”

Aaron looked at him, sizing up the medic. Joe held his gaze with gentleness he usually reserved for critical patients. Aaron didn’t need a firm hand or brusque manner to make him behave. Aaron lifted the canteen to his lips without breaking eye contact, and Joe smiled. He tugged off Aaron’s shirt and soaked it in the muddy water then wiped the wet material over Aaron’s back and chest to cool him off.

Joe’s thumb lingered over the only obvious scar on Aaron’s torso, a pitted pink slick from long ago shrapnel on the blade of Aaron’s shoulder. It was impressively little damage for a man who lived like Aaron. When Aaron finished his canteen, Joe let him drink the rest of his fruit punch. Joe was sipping on freshly iodined water and spreading shitty peanut butter on crackers which he made Aaron eat. They didn’t have many rations left, five days worth for a single man. Joe ate the jerky snacks and a cookie but made Aaron finish off the rest of the already open ration. Besides the crackers and jerky, there was another energy bar and a second sandwich. Aaron inhaled the calories and willingly fell asleep curled into a fetal ball with his knees pressed against Joe’s good leg.

The thirty kilometers had given them a good head start on the black tanks, but there was still a chance they hadn’t made a clean getaway. So Aaron only got four hours before Joe shook him awake. To the medic’s surprise, the sniper responded to the push against his shoulder by leaning into it and craning his head around like he was intent on nuzzling Joe’s hand. That was more awkward than Joe could deal with. Digging out food and more water to cover his flinch out of Aaron’s space, he barked, “Out or down, my lad.” Aaron, hair sticking up pathetically and stiff with dirt, pulled himself up cross-legged and drank the water and ate the energy bar Joe shoved at him without speaking. Joe pulled out the map and traced the distance to the next water source. “It’s twelve kliks, mate.” Aaron shrugged. “Don’t give me that. How are you feeling?”

“Well, I’d give my hazard pay to be home, in bed, with my wife. But seeing as you’re not anywhere pretty enough to be her, I’m just sore and ready to get the fuck out of here.” Aaron crawled over to refill his canteen and mixed in some fake Gatorade powder from the ration Joe had opened. “I can make it another ten kilometers, Joe. It’ll be getting dark soon. We can wait out the night at the next water source. They’ll be some caves near it with topography like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the lovely Julorean.
> 
> The rations described in this chapter actually exist. They're First Strike rations rather than traditional MREs.


	63. I Read the News Today

Marta didn’t like the look on Agent Coulson’s face as he lead her downstairs to the office where she called Aaron. Instead of the satellite phone sitting in the center of the table, there were two chairs. A dark haired, stocky man in black fatigues, the uniform Marta associated with SHIELD’s soldiers, sat in the new chair leaving Marta’s usual seat open. His face was grim as he looked up from his phone over to Marta and Coulson. It made him look like a pit bull, all jaw and meanness on a face that could be handsome.

Smoothing her hands down the front of her cardigan, Marta walked over and sat down in her usual place. She laced her fingers in her lap. The soldier watched her curiously. Agent Coulson cleared his throat. “Doctor Shearing, this is Agent Charles Barton. He’s your husband’s handler.”

There was no good news here. Marta tried to smile, but it came out a sickly grimace. “Where’s Aaron, Agent Barton?”

“Well, we were hoping you might have some idea,” Barton said quietly, his eyes cold.

Marta’s neatly laced fingers curled together tightly into ugly knots. “I haven’t spoken to my husband since last week. Agent Coulson and his minions monitor every time I breathe. So he can assure you Aaron and I have no unsupervised contact. What happened? Why are you here without Aaron?”

Barton frowned, obviously not expecting Marta’s fury. She wanted to slap the incredulity off his face. For all their stilted conversations, Marta was Aaron’s wife. The soldier considered her for a long moment, putting the phone away and tipping his chair back. “We were on a mission, and your husband and our medic were trapped in a partially collapsed bunker. When we went back to retrieve them, they were gone. We found their radios abandoned several miles away and your husband’s pack stashed in his original blind.” 

There hadn’t been a body. Marta lowered her eyes, trying to hide her relief behind the hair that had fallen out of her loose bun. “He’s okay then,” she said confidently. “Aaron’s very hard to kill.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Barton said wryly. “I need to know if he offed my medic and is running for the hills.

Marta couldn’t hide her shock. Barton raised an eyebrow. “No. Aaron’s not…” Marta looked down out her hands, which were starting cramp from gripping so tightly. “Aaron is capable of extreme violence with little provocation.” She remembered those poor security guards in the Philippines. “But violence isn’t his nature. It’s his training, not his programming. Your medic is fine.”

“I’d be inclined to believe that, if this wasn’t the first time Aaron’s ever disobeyed one of my orders,” Barton said with fake geniality. His fingers tapped against the butt of his pistol, a subconscious tic.

Swallowing Marta forced her voice steady as she stated, “I’m not just his wife. I helped… make him. He was intended as a surgical strike asset, but a stable one. His facility for empathy and emotional connection was not compromised, just modified. Outco… Aaron, in many ways is not capable of going rogue. Not while I’m being held by SHIELD. Part of his programming is the desire for a locus to direct his affections toward and a drive to do whatever is necessary to retain that locus. He’s got no way to get back to me. So he wouldn’t risk SHIELD retaliating against me. Your medic is fine. I don’t know why they ran, but I’d bet my research your medic is complicit, probably even giving the orders.”

Barton’s mouth pursed thoughtfully. Slowly he said, “You’re a soulless bitch.” His lip curled up in an unkind smirk. “You’re too valuable to just put a bullet in your head to make a point, but watch yourself. One toe out of line, one rumor your husband is coming for you, and we’ll be talking again.”

“Soulless I may be,” Marta said, holding herself perfectly still. Anger always made her stronger, and Aaron had taught her how to use it to her advantage. “But I’m not the one threatening an unarmed woman because he abandoned his men.”

“Bitch!” Barton snarled. His hand curled into a fist, and for a moment Marta was sure he was going to hit her. Coulson loudly cleared his throat behind her. Barton’s fists uncurled and he leaned down on the table so he and Marta were face to face. “I don’t know why the fuck he saved you,” Barton sneered.

Feeling cold, Marta smiled back, doing her best to mimic Aaron’s dead-eyed shooter’s face. “Some of us don’t need hostages to ensure loyalty.”

Coulson spoke up, “Walk away, Barton.” Marta didn’t look at the soldier as he left, only slumping over when she heard him bang through the swinging doors that lead out of the building. “Doctor Shearing?” Coulson asked softly.

“I’d like to go back to my lab now,” Marta said softly. “Please let me know when they’ve found my husband. I’d like to speak to him.” She pushed out her chair, stood, and began walking back towards the elevator.

Following her, her perpetual shadow, Coulson said casually, “When they find him?”

“Aaron is too good a solider to go AWOL, and the only place that’s more home to him than Virginia is Afghanistan.” Marta smoothed her sweater again. “He’s fine, and he’s making his way back to wherever is ‘safe’.” She hit the button for the level where her lab was waiting. The computer probably hadn’t even gone into standby mode yet.

Coulson stood next to her, a pillar of subdued patriotic duty and the most stifling kind of morality. “Not you,” he said almost gently. Marta looked at him oddly, not understanding. “More home than Virginia, but not more home than you are.”

“It’s not that kind of marriage,” Marta finally said, uncomfortable. “I never got the appeal, but he seems to like the country, and the food.” They didn’t speak again, and Marta disappeared back into her lab as soon as possible.

*****

Barney leaned his forehead against the wall as he listened to the bitching on the other end of the phone. Manfully, he didn’t bash himself unconscious against the cinder block. “Look, sir, I didn’t plan for Joey to get stuck in there with the asset. The kid would have stayed put, except Joey must have started giving orders. I just confirmed with the wife.” Fucking bureaucrat could talk anything to death. Barney closed his eyes and listened to the voice on the other end. “She’s not just his wife, sir. She helped program him. I don’t like her, but I think she’s right. Joey was making overtures to the kid before we left, soccer and all that shit. If Joey started barking orders, Shearing would listen.”

It was supposed to be easy. Shearing had fucked up the original plan by coming down to the mansion early, but Barney had made it work. Even with Joey there it would have been easy enough to shoot the medic with a knockout dart and make it look like Shearing had done a runner. All the home team had to do was swoop in and pick up Shearing. 

Shearing had never disobeyed a direct order. A suggestion, or an order that wasn’t perfectly clear, the kid would find a way around, but direct orders were inviolable. So it had to be Joey running the show, and Barney had to get the home team to believe it. Or he wasn’t getting paid. “Look, sir, I’ll see if I can’t get satellite photos of the area. Joey’s leg is fucked up. So they can’t be moving very fast. We may just have to try again.”

The man on the other end was not happy , but he was too dignified to let anything but loaded silence indicate exactly how furious he was. Barney closed his eyes. “Look, I don’t think Shearing’s what you want anyways. He turned on his first handlers easily enough, and those morons made him. I’m just saying, subterfuge might get us further than grabbing him off the street.” At least the boss seemed to be considering the idea. Barney thumped his head against the wall once. “Yeah, Jacques’ doing fine. The new place is much better at rolling with the punches. Jacques only made it over the wall twice so far, and no one’s tried to exorcise him. He’s got a private room and everything. So he’s calmed down a lot.”

The boss made the appropriate noises. Even Barton didn’t like the man very much - he was charming as a snake. “Shearing will come back. When he does, let me take him for a test drive. If it works, then you don’t have to worry about trying to flip him.” Barney grimaced at the boss’ noncommittal tone. “Yes, sir.” He hung up. “Asshole.” He looked up as Shostakov cleared his throat. “Don’t worry, the boss isn’t interested in Joey gossiping. It’d be more inconvenient for the home team if someone shut him up. Too much attention yeah?” The big Russian didn’t look convinced. “It’s fine. They’re letting it go for now. So Joey isn’t even in the crossfire anymore.”

Shostakov snorted. No one was really out of the crossfire these days, but he only liked the money. So Barney had a hard time feeling sorry for whatever morals the big man had left. Shostakov’s money for playing for the home team went straight into a numbered Swiss account. Barney’s went to the nursing home. Since Clint wasn’t around anymore to take care of Jacques, Barney was doing his best. If the job sometimes left a bad taste in his mouth, he owed the old man and his little brother a lot more than any personal reservations.

*****

“Hey,” Joe shook Aaron gently. “Come here, lad. You’re shivering.” He tugged his blanket up. “Come’ere.” Aaron obediently crawled over, dragging his pile of jackets with him. Joe tucked the blankets around the both of them, piling the jackets on top of the blanket. “Have some more water.”

Aaron shook his head. “Just need to sleep.” He pressed his face to Joe’s shoulder. “Was cold.”

Joe chafed Aaron’s arms. “Cuddle up then, my lad.” He was going to be sweating, but they’d run out of food two days ago. Aaron had managed to shoot a rabbit, but they were moving too fast to hunt anything larger or scavenge for vegetation in the desert plateau they’d spent the last day on. They had water. The map turned out to be good, and, when it failed, Aaron had an uncanny nose for finding a muddy puddle somewhere that would suffice.

Even though it hadn’t been long, the lack of calories was affecting Aaron. The man had gone from stoic to silent. Joe, feeling helpless, had done his best to keep Aaron drinking and sleeping through the night. The sniper, surprisingly, seemed to improve if he slept curled up next to Joe. So sharing blankets, and Joe sweating from Aaron’s stupidly high core temperature, had become the new norm.

Camp Bastion was another four days away. Though Aaron was optimistic they’d run across a patrol soon. Joe would be glad not to deal with the ribbing of being carried into camp by his team’s sniper. Joe just hoped they found someone with food. He had no doubt he and Aaron would make it back to Bastion regardless, but he didn’t look forward to the recovery period they would be subjected to.

Aaron shifted, nosing towards Joe’s throat. “Hey now, mate. Not your wife.”

“Jason?” Aaron asked muzzily, opening his eyes.

Joe’s sighed, “Not him either. Whoever the fuck he is.” He wondered who Jason was. In the past four days, they’d talked more than they ever had at Bastion, though Joe was doing most of the speaking. The only personal details Aaron seemed willing to offer were about how beautiful and accomplished his wife was and how he was so lucky to be with a woman so much smarter than him. It was the same bullshit Joe had heard from other young soldiers in love, but Aaron’s mantras had a plastic quality that was a bit unsettling.

Aaron opened one eye, “Definitely not Jeffy either.” There was a tone in his voice Joe didn’t recognize. It took him a long moment to process Aaron was teasing him.

“Who’s Jeffy then?” Joe asked, because no name that could be a joke was too loaded.

“My… cousin,” Aaron said, seeming to trip over himself. “More like my brother though. He taught me to play hockey.”

“Field hockey or ice hockey?” Joe asked, chuckling when Aaron shot him a disgusted look.

Aaron tipped his head back towards the darkening sky. “Only one real kind of hockey,” he said in a perfect rural, northern Canadian accent. Joe bit his lip to keep from smiling. “But yeah,” Aaron let the accent slip away. “Jeff’s a winger. I play defense when I get the chance. God, I miss skating.”

Joe laughed unrestrainedly. “Not a lot of ice around here, mate. You’ll have to wait until we get back home. You any good?”

With a modest shrug, Aaron muttered, “I’m not bad for an amateur, considering how late I started.” He cocked his head to the side. “Do you hear that?”

They both fell silent, listening to the desert wind. “I’ve got nothing,” Joe said softly.

Aaron shook his head. “There’s someone out there.” He wiggled out of the pile of blankets with his pistol in hand. His head cocked to the side. “Fuck.” The safety clicked off, but his eyes were closed. “Joe, there’s at least six insurgents outside. And they’ve got a woman with them. She’s not happy.”

“Was it her voice you heard?” Joe asked shrugging off the blankets as well and slinging his rifle strap over his t-shirt. Aaron nodded. “Bugger it. Well, we better check on the lady.” He leveraged himself to his feet using the wall. “I’ll cover you.” Aaron grinned with relief.

There were eight men between the ages of sixteen and forty at the springhead down the slope. There was a woman, her head bare, tearful and snarling but someone grabbed her every time she tried to run. Aaron glanced over at Joe. The medic was straining to see through the dark, but his eyes adjusted quickly. “Shit, can you even the odds with the rifle?”

“Yes, but you won’t be able to get close enough to use the pistol. Can you provide cover fire?” Aaron crouched down and considered the best angle to get within range to use the handgun without being seen. Joe grunted confirmation, taking up a covered position with the rifle propped up on a boulder. “I’ll fire first,” Aaron said softly before springing down the slope.

Joe lined up his sights with the head of the man furthest from the rock line Aaron would have to hide behind. Two insurgents dropped in what seemed to be the same crack of a shot. Joe pulled the trigger reflexively rather than intentionally, dropping his own target. He realigned the rifle and took out the terrified kid strafing Aaron’s position. It would have been just bad luck for any bullet to actually hit the sniper since the kid didn’t seem to be aiming so much as flailing. Aaron dropped another two insurgents, shouting at the girl in at least two different languages. She seemed to understand one of them, because she let herself fall to the ground and covered her head with her arms.

Joe shot the man trying to grab her. It wasn’t a clean hit, just winging the bastard. Adjusting, Joe made sure to double tap the man’s torso before moving on. Aaron dropped the last man, a boy really, who was waving his rifle muzzle in the air in fear and confusion. The two soldiers waited to make sure they had no more visitors. Aaron didn’t expose himself, calling out to the girl in her own language and waving her behind the rocks. She crawled over until Aaron could grab her hand pull her up.

Aaron guided the girl up the slope. She was shaking, her feet were bare and battered, and her headcover hadn’t just slipped, it was completely gone. The grip Aaron had on her arm was obviously uncomfortable as she tried to struggle free of her new captor. “We’ve got to go,” Aaron told Joe unnecessarily.

“Her feet are a mess,” Joe pointed out. He sighed. “She can have my boots.” The girl’s wide, dark eyes flitted between Aaron and Joe desperately. The medic slowly reached out and tapped her on the cheek. “I know it’s fucking terrifying, love. But we’re your best chance for getting out of here. Tell her we’ll find her a headscarf too, if she needs one.”

In the almost musical language, Aaron spoke softly, trying to catch the girl’s eye. She wouldn’t look at him, but she stopped struggling. “Okay, I think she likes the idea of shoes and a hijab replacement.”

The two soldiers took the girl up to cave where their gear was. Joe took off his boots and socks. “Tell her to sit down so I can clean her feet,” he told Aaron. Aaron obediently parroted something similar at the girl in the girl’s own language. The girl hesitantly sat on a rock while Aaron said something encouraging. Pulling out antiseptic, water, and bandages, Joe worked quickly to pull the worst of the gravel and grime out of the cuts in the girl’s soles. He scrubbed the abrasions and applied the antibacterial gel before wrapping her feet in bandages. Then he slid the socks overtop the bandages. “Cut up the edge of the blanket. I need something to fill out the boots to fit her feet.”

Aaron started adding strips of blanket to the large square he’d already cut out to make a hijab. Joe stuffed the strips into the toes of the boots and wrapped the others around the girl’s feet. With the strips of wool making the girl’s foot larger and the boot fit more snuggly. Joe put the boots on the girl and tied her laces as tight as they would go. Then he handed her the rectangle of cloth, which she tied around her head, over her hair.

Joe grimaced at the smell of his own feet as he turned to Aaron. “Ready?” He asked the sniper, who was already loaded down with the pack.

“Yup.” Aaron squatted and lifted Joe in a fireman’s carry again. He spoke to the girl again, translating for Joe, “She’s going to stay close behind me. So try not to knock her out with the stench from your feet.” Joe elbowed him in the head.

They walked, making painfully slow progress in the dark. The girl ended up clinging to Joe’s arm to keep her balance. Joe gripped her wrist back, feeling his shoulder pull every time she slipped, but her slender fingers clung tightly enough she never fell to her knees.

Aaron on walked until the sun was fully risen, stopping only to reorient himself with his compass while Joe checked the map. The girl spent their brief breaks crouched down sipping at a canteen. She stayed close to Joe, watching them both with wide, dark eyes. Joe apparently presented less of a threat than Aaron to her. The medic was impressed by her instincts since Aaron was smaller and acted almost harmless compared to Joe’s scowls and pained grunts.

The girl’s stomach growled. Aaron and Joe shared a grimace. If they had anything, they would give it to her. To Joe’s surprise the girl looked at Aaron and started talking. Aaron shook his head when he responded. His accent, originally native to Afghanistan but different from the girl’s, was starting to pick of the flavor of her tones. The girl scowled and chittered at him, sounding like a chickadee scolding a sparrowhawk. Aaron’s frown broke into a wide grin.

“You hungry Joe?” he asked jovially.

“What are you on about mate?” Joe demanded.

Aaron tipped his head at the girl, “Kinah here was on her way to meet her father when the truck she and her uncle were riding in got robbed. One of those assholes we shot up gave her uncle a bride price.” Joe scowled. He was amazed the Kinah had been willing to come near them after being raped by her new ‘husband’. “She says her father will take her back. He’s a communist and a journalist and nearby.”

Joe caught on immediately, “He’d probably be happy to have an excuse to ride in to Camp Bastion then,” he said cheerfully. Journalists were always good for a meal and a ride, no matter where you were. All you had to do was give them a bit of a story.

Kinah and Aaron crouched down over the map as they plotted out the route to where the village her father was basing himself out of. When they were done, Kinah picked up the pack. She said something, directed at both of them, then gestured imperiously at Aaron. Aaron, with a small smile, obediently translated, “She’s going to carry the bag. Since she’s in bad shape, but we look worse. Plus, I’m going to end up carrying it all one way or another.”

“Pass the rifle over,” Joe ordered as Aaron helped Kinah into the pack. The sniper passed the rifle then showed Kinah how to adjust the chest straps, demonstrating with the buckles on his vest to respect her personal space. “I’m going to bag us a rabbit,” he warned. “Hope you like tartare. We need something before we keep going.”

Aaron nodded and drew his pistol, accepting Joe’s choice. With his bum leg, Joe couldn’t make sure Kinah got away if the shots drew attention. He could however hide while Aaron rescued Kinah and wait for Aaron to return for him. Joe limped over to the overlook of the small mountain stream where they’d refilled their canteens while Aaron and Kinah hid in the boulders above. He waited for two rabbits to hop out and take drink. He shot the larger of the two in the leg. The size of the standard NATO rounds would have blown apart the guts, rendering the meat uneatable raw. He slung the rifle over his back and hopped down the slope. The poor thing was panting and struggling. Joe scooped it up and broke its neck.

He drained, skinned, and gutted the rabbit, tossing the offal down slope where carrion birds would clean it up. Kinah and Aaron climbed down to join him. Joe stripped the rabbit with his knife, passing the rubbery pieces over to Aaron and Kinah, who had been doing most of the walking. Aaron made sure Kinah got the biggest bits.

Joe gnawed the remainder of the meat off the limbs for himself. The carcass they dropped a mile away from the water. Kinah led the way, compass in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beated by the lovely Julorean.


	64. Chapter 64

It was a cool day. Two American soldiers were stretched out along the rocks taking in some sun while watching the cart track up to the remote Afghani village where they’d spent the week. They were older, starting to go grey. It was most apparent in the taller and broader man, who had silver streaks in his dark hair. He had his eye pressed to the scope of his rifle observing the movement below. The sandy haired man, whose sharp features made it hard to gauge his precise age, kept throwing small stones at his friend’s face, trying to break the other soldier’s concentration.

Hoot elbowed Sanderson to get him to stop with the pebbles. “Visitors,” he said laconically. The girl riding in the front of the donkey cart with the driver was Afghani, pretty, and with an ugly looking hijab obviously scavenged from a rag pile somewhere. The two men riding on top of the bags of rice in the back of the cart were white and dressed in the old NATO standard BDUs. From their mishmash of gear and old uniforms, Hoot guessed mercenary. The merc with black hair had a splint on his leg, complete with a bare foot, which was propped up against the seat at the front of the cart. He had an H&K G36 in his lap. So independent operator or not, he had money. Firepower like that didn’t come cheap. His buddy only had a sidearm that Hoot could see through the scope.

The second merc was sitting behind the first. He was dozing with his face pressed into his injured friend’s shoulder. They both looked like hell. It took Hoot a moment to spot the black-haired merc’s boots, or what were probably his boots, on the Afghani girl’s feet. There was definitely a story there.

Sanderson leaned over Hoot’s shoulder, looking down at the cart and its strange passengers. “I wonder if Obiad has an explanation for this?”

Obiad Sahabi was an Oxford educated journalist whose wife had been killed by a car bomb meant for him. He’d made a career of digging up the dirty secrets of the men who lead extremist factions and publishing them to undermine the militant Islamic hold on the country. On his blog, where he did most of his muckraking work, was Daniel 2:31 to 33 in English, Pashto, Dari, and Arabic.

Sahabi had done good work while the US had been running the country, and he’d even managed to influence politics under the Taliban. But the troops had pulled out, and Sahabi’s wife had been killed. In exchange for information on the internal political structure of the new conservative party and various Taliban shadow governments, Sahabi and his daughter had been granted asylum in the United States. Delta had been sent to extract the Sahabis, but there had been a delay at the daughter’s school. The father was camped out in a remote mountain village populated by distant branch of his tribe. His brother was supposed to bring the girl in two days ago. They were still waiting.

Sanderson radioed the other operators, who had been given a milk run as their first mission. Hoot smiled grimly as he tracked the donkey cart up the switchback. There was no way of knowing why the mercenaries were here or what their game was, but they’d be in for a nasty surprise when they walked into a Delta Force ambush.

“Aaron,” Joe bounced his shoulder gently. Aaron stirred, nudging Joe’s shoulder with his nose to indicate alertness. “We’re being watched.” There was another nudge then Aaron murmured in Dari, Kinah’s language. Kinah looked up uncertainly then climbed into the back of the cart, kneeling down next to Joe like she was checking his leg.

As the cart trundled beneath a scraggly tree that was more bush than anything else, he rolled out of the cart and seemed to vanish. Joe put his hand on Kinah’s shoulder and gave her a sharp nod. She nodded back gravely and started wrapping rags around his feet. He flipped the safety off on the rifle.

Sanderson frowned as Hoot hissed through is teeth. “What’s up, buddy?” he asked, crawling forward to look again.

“Second merc’s gone,” Hoot said darkly. “The cart went under a tree and came out one passenger light.” He sat up. “Call those boys back, Jeff. They’re fresh blood. Those bastards aren’t.”

Down the path, two of the American soldiers had already fallen in with the cart.

Joe looked over at the uniforms were pacing them. The driver was very quiet and very still. Kinah sank lower into the cart. “Afternoon, lads,” Joe called out casually. “Nice day for a stroll?” Kinah started shaking. The two soldiers didn’t deign to reply. Joe wasn’t surprised. He kneaded Kinah’s shoulder gently as he watched them. Their uniforms were unmarked, but they were wide-eyed with cropped hair that suggested NATO. It didn’t matter though. If they tried to touch Kinah, Joe would kill them.

Another two men appeared to flank the cart, boxing Joe in. Joe hissed through his teeth, considering. All the men were young, Aaron’s age or younger. So the men in charge weren’t visible, meaning a six man fire team at minimum. Even Aaron would have trouble with that.

The cart rounded the final bend to the niche in the side of the mountain where the village was tucked away. Two more men in uniform were waiting for the cart. They were older and much more relaxed than the uptight kids who were escorting Joe. It took a moment, when Joe considered open firing first and hoping Kinah had the sense to run, before the medic recognized the dark haired sergeant. “Bloody hell, Hoot. You scared ten years off me life, mate. It’s Joe Chapman, from Bosnia. Don’t shoot.”

“Union Jack,” Hoot drawled, lowering the muzzle of his rifle. “Well, son, you gave us quite the turn too. Sanderson, this is that medic I told you about. The crazy fuck who got into a yelling match with a suicide bomber.”

Sanderson grinned, a lean, mean thing. “What the hell are you doing out here, Chapman?”

“Long story, mission gone bad,” Chapman said briefly. “I’m with SHIELD now. You lads? Still army?”

“Yessir,” Hoot replied, “and I think you have something that belongs to us.” He tipped his head to the girl. Kinah made a soft, unhappy noise and pressed herself closer to Joe.

Joe shrugged, “Then we might have a problem. Because this one’s mine. And I’m quite fond of her.”

Hoot tilted his head, accepting the warning. “Maybe. Jeff, go get Obiad. I don’t think she’ll come otherwise.” Sanderson nodded sharply, gesturing for one of the kids in fatigues to come with him. Hoot sat down on a crude bench made up of piled, flat stones. His hands remained in the firing position on his rifle, just like Joe. Joe could almost smell the gunpowder and hot lead about to go streaking through the air.

Then Kinah yelped, “Baba!” She started wiggling in Joe’s grip. “Baba!” A tall, slender man dressed in western clothes, jeans and a sweatshirt, came running past the American soldiers and Hoot with his arms spread open.

He was weeping and shouting, “Kinah, jaanem. Azizam!”

Kinah patted Joe’s hand and chattered at him expectantly. He let her go, because ‘Baba’ sounded just like ‘Papa’ when she shouted it. Kinah leapt off the cart and flew into her father’s arms. The man embraced her, curling his body over her protectively as he wept into her hair. Her hijab had come loose as she’d run over.

“Aaron,” Joe said, not bothering to yell just raising his voice, “don’t kill them. I’m pretty sure they’re here to rescue Kinah and the old man.”

Hoot looked up, interested. “Who you talkin’ to, Jack?”

“Me.” Aaron leapt down soundlessly from a low roof and landed near Hoot. No one had even seen him perched up there. Though there was no apparent cover. “Joe?”

“Aaron, this is Norm Hootner, Delta Force. And Jeff Sanderson. Never seen one without the other. Lads, this is…” Joe trailed off uncertainly. Aaron had caused a lot of havoc before he’d joined SHIELD. Enough he might has ended up on the Army’s radar as well the various intelligence services.

Aaron shrugged, “Aaron Shearing, with SHIELD.”

Sanderson nodded, “You sure about that?” He arched an eyebrow at Joe’s hesitation.

“Got the same name as my wife, so yeah.” Aaron gave him a look too empty to be a glare. “I’m sure.”

“Gentle now, Jeff,” Hoot said coolly. “Boy’s had a long day. So where you headed, Jack?”

Joe shrugged, “Camp Bastion. Don’t suppose we could hitch a ride?”

That actually got a laugh out of the stolid, dark haired operator. “Sure, friend. I think we can help you with that,” Hoot said, lips curling up into a small smile.

******

Shen Kuei wasn’t exactly surprised when Joe Chapman and Aaron Shearing rolled back into Camp Bastion in a battered truck being driven by two members of Delta Force. Chapman was wearing sandals and had his leg splinted. Shearing was dressed like a local and seemed to be content stuffing his face from a bag of dried fruit and nuts.

Keui stood, stretched and wandered over as Shearing jumped down then helped Chapman out of the bed. “We thought he’d killed you,” Kuei said idly, watching them.

Chapman snorted, “That’s bullocks. The radios were bugged, Kuei. Someone was out there trying to track us down, and it wasn’t SHIELD.”

That was news. Kuei straightened. “We’ll talk.” He walked over to the driver’s side window to speak to the two operators who’d brought his agents back. “How much do we owe you?” he asked the sandy-haired driver.

The man shrugged, “Nada, buddy. Favor to friend.”

Kuei accepted the news with a small frown, stepping back and letting the truck pull away. Shearing was helping Chapman to the infirmary. Kuei made for the radio tent. Barton was still back in the states, and there were questions Kuei would have answered before he told the leader of Team Delta the good news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the lovely Julorean.
> 
> If Hoot and Sanderson sound familiar, that's because I wrote this chapter while high on pain meds and watching Blackhawk Down.
> 
> Daniel 2:31 to 33 is a flashback to my Sunday school days.
> 
> “Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.  
> This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,  
> His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.”


	65. Chapter 65

Aaron leaned against the doorway. “Knock, knock,” he said quietly. “How are you?” He was dressed in plain black SHIELD fatigues and a grey t-shirt with no markings on it. He’d shaved, and the lack of dirty scruff took years off his face. Joe figured the lessening gauntness in the sniper’s cheeks helped significantly too. He’d never see a body consume itself as quickly as Aaron’s seemed to. The bastard wasn’t even sunburned. The medic’s face and neck were lobster red and peeling. Aaron just had a healthy tan that would be charming as soon as he had a few more pounds for it to cover.

Joe lobbed the magazine he’d been reading at Aaron, with a smile to assure Aaron he was teasing. “Come in, mate. Christ, you look chipper.” With a shrug, Aaron came in and settled down on the edge of the bed carefully after picking the magazine up. He raised an eyebrow at the Playboy. Joe grimaced and reached down to rub at the cast on his leg. “Would you believe I’m reading it for the articles?” Aaron smirked. “Oi, shut it, Mister ‘I married a hot, brainy bird’.” He shoved playfully at Aaron until the other soldier dropped the magazine on the side table. “They’re shipping me back to the states. My leg’s pretty well buggered, and I’m going to need surgery and PT. Estimated recovery is eight months.” Aaron’s face fell. “Not your fault,” Joe said quickly. “During the second explosion the fracture torqued. There was nothing we could have done.”

“How much pain are you in?” Aaron asked, carefully leaning so his arm was just pressed against Joe’s.

Joe grinned. “I am so zonked right now, mate. I can’t feel a thing.” He bent his elbow and bumped Aaron. “It’ll be okay, my lad. Barton’s not as bad as he seems, and now he knows he can trust you.” The reassurance was empty. Barton trusted Joe, but it hadn’t done the medic any favors.  
With a pensive nod, Aaron murmured, “I’m sorry about Stryker.” His tone was wistful and full of regret.

Swallowing hard, Joe nodded, “I know. He deserved it the least.” They were both quiet, Joe out of dull grief and Aaron out of respect. “Where are they sending you?” Joe finally asked.  
Aaron shrugged, “Back to my wife for a week. Apparently dragging your heavy ass across Afghanistan is enough to get me conjugal privileges. Then, I don’t know.” The tightness in his jaw suggested he wasn’t exactly pleased with the lack of intel from his commanding officers. Joe winced in sympathy. Not seeing it coming was worse than knowing you were fucked.

The quiet returned. Aaron moved when the nurse came in to check Joe’s chart and vitals. She gave Aaron an odd look but didn’t tell him to leave. “I’ll bring you something to eat,” she told Aaron almost disapprovingly. “Joe, make sure he actual eats it. I know the food’s terrible, but he needs the calories.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Joe promised. “Thanks, Marcia.” He shook his head at Aaron. “She’s right. You’re still too skinny.” Aaron actually looked mulish, which, considering how Aaron had always put away food before, was an unsettling change.

Joe was used to more obstinate patients than Aaron though. He’d intended to give a sniper a gift. It would work as a bribe just as well. “I’ve got something for you, might make you hungrier.” Joe grinned as Aaron perked up. Joe reached over to the pile of magazines. Between the car rags and footie updates was a stack of magazines. He’d bribed every Canadian in camp to hand over any back issues of hockey magazines they had. It wasn’t a thick stack, only about an inch, but Aaron didn’t have anything Joe had ever seen.

“Oh,” Aaron’s murmur was barely audible. He carefully lifted the stack out of Joe’s hands. He brushed his thumb over the face of a dark haired, pale eyed hockey player on the cover of USA Hockey Magazine. “Thank you.” Aaron propped the magazines on his lap with a slick rustle of paper.

“The bird I got that from said it was a publication for the amateur league. Figured your cousin might be in there somewhere.” Joe nudged Aaron gently. The other soldier just kept running his thumb over the spines of the magazines. “You’re allowed, you know. Probation’s over, Aaron. Anyone tries to take those from you, you lay’em out.” 

Aaron grinned, looking up at Joe through long lashes. Joe swallowed and felt himself flush before he could get a hold of himself. “Thanks, Joe. I really did miss this.” Aaron looked young, lost, and strangely devastated. He held the magazines carefully as if they were a box of detonators, putting them on the side table out of the way. “Jeffy isn’t amateur though.” He glanced around then ducked his head in close with a wide, childlike grin and whispered, “Jeff’s in the NHL, the North American professional hockey league, the big one.” Pulling back, he pressed his index finger to his lips in the sign for quiet.

It was a huge secret. Joe stared back, wide-eyed. “Holy Christ, Aaron.” Aaron nodded eagerly, practically bouncing in place. Breathing out slowly, Joe also glanced around, “Were you ever…?” Settling, face grimmer, Aaron shook his head. “Damn. For a moment there, I thought I was mates with a famous hockey player.”

The jab made Aaron smile again. “I’ll get some ice time if we’re ever stateside together, and you can judge for yourself.”

Joe reached out slowly, cupping his hand over the pulse in Aaron’s neck. He’d gotten used to feeling Aaron’s heart beat while being carried across the mountains. It was reassuringly steady against his palm. “I’d like that a lot, seeing you skate. Seeing you play hockey. Don’t be a stranger, Aaron. I already told Barton I’d come looking for you if you fell off the grid.” He smirked, “I may only be a medic, but I can raise enough hell Barton doesn’t want to cross me.” Sliding his hand up to grip the back of Aaron’s neck he asked, “What position do you play? So I can have one of the Canadians explain it to me.”

“D-man,” Aaron replied promptly, “defense man. I’m really good at skating backwards.”

Joe shook his head, perplexed. “Skating backwards, running up mountains carrying your mates, is there anything you can’t do?” He felt Aaron flinch as something rattled in the hall. “I know you don’t want to eat the food here. That’s alright. Just grab something before they stick you on the plane, yeah? You want to look good for the missus.”

“I’ll grab something from the commissary.” Aaron extended his hand. Grasping Aaron’s forearm tightly, Joe pulled them together in a matey hug. “Don’t get shot,” Aaron said roughly, pressing his face into Joe’s neck.

“You too,” Joe said, equally strained. He watched silently as Aaron picked up his magazines and checked the hall for Marcia before slipping away.  
\------  
“What?” Barton raised an eyebrow at Kuei. The smaller man hummed and tapped his mahjong tile against the table before playing his set. Barton scowled and drew from one of the two dummy hands. “Just say whatever the fuck you’re thinking, Shen. This zen silence isn’t going make things go any faster.”

Kuei drew from Barton’s discard pile. “Chapman said the radios were bugged too. If it was just Shearing, I’d write it off, but Joey saw the bugs, Barney.”

“All of our radios have trackers,” Barton pointed out. “So SHIELD can find us. It’s just not common knowledge, but you know.”

“SHIELD trackers are removable,” Shuei snapped, laying out another set of tiles with exacting precision. “They aren’t hardwired to destroy the battery at any removal attempt.”

Barton grimaced as he realized Shuei was going to win again. “Yes,” he agreed grudgingly.

Shuei tapped on the table, his only indication of impatience. “Joey didn’t see SHIELD trackers. Someone else put them there.” He tipped his last meld over. “I believe I win. I don’t know what game you’re playing Barney, but I want no part.”

“Fuck,” Barton sighed with no real heat. “Why haven’t you gone to Fury, Shen?”

The placid soldier shrugged and started reshuffling the tiles for another game. They didn’t even bother tallying a score anymore. It stung Barton’s pride too much. “You are a fucker and a terrible human being, but we’ve always been good to each other.” He dealt thirteen tiles to each of them, plus two unmanned hands, and put the rest in the middle. “You go first.” He waited for Barney to discard and draw. “I’m leaving SHIELD.”

Barton huffed out like he’d been suckerpunched. “What?

Moving his tiles around, Kuei shrugged. “I miss Leiko. I don’t like what we’re becoming. I am tired of playing your second when I deserve a proper command of my own. The food is terrible. Choose whichever suits you.”

“You don’t have to quit just to protect me,” Barton said quietly, putting his hand over the pile of tiles in the center to stop the game. “Christ, Shen. Just report me. Fury’ll give you my command in a hot second.”

Carefully, Kuei pushed Barton’s hand to the side. “No.” He drew a tile.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you inscrutable ninja bastard, I won’t let you blow your career because I’m fucking up,” Barton snarled, leaning in and keeping his voice low.

In a blur of movement, Kuei pinned Barton’s hand to the table by the wrist. “Yes, you will. I don’t know what you’ve gotten into, Barney, but I won’t stay and watch your mistakes destroy you. Ever since Clint…” He trailed off, unusually awkward.

Revved up and in fighting form at his brother’s name, Barton ducked his head lower teeth bared. “Ever since Clint what, Shen?”

“Ever since Clint committed suicide, you’ve tried to be both Barton brothers. It’s not working. And I can’t make you stop. So I’m walking away.” Kuei gently lifted his hand away from Barton’s wrist, holding up both hands in a gesture of surrender.

Deflated, Barton slumped back into his seat. “It wasn’t suicide, just a stupid accident.” He repeated the mantra, unable to suppress his own disbelief.

Kuei looked at his friend with pity Barton just wanted to punch off his face. “Clint was foolhardy, not stupid. He knew mixing his vices was going to kill him. Without Jacques, no one could have stopped him, Barney. Certainly not you. He only stayed as long as he did because of the old man.”

“It was an accident,” Barton repeated weakly.

“If you prefer,” Kuei said coolly, withdrawing back behind his mask. “I am leaving. You will not stop me.” He started collecting the tiles back into the box. “It stands to reason if you try to emulate your brother and his few positive qualities, you will also emulate his self-destructive streak. Fury will be watching.”

Barton bared his teeth in a smile that was anything but. “That one-eyed bastard can’t even see what’s going on under his own nose. Let alone what little ol’ me does in my spare time.” Kuei shrugged neutrally, not offering comment. “I’ll help you get your gear,” Barton finally muttered.

As they left the shade of the stack of crates they’d been using a temporary shelter from the sun, Barton asked, “How do you always win, you uncanny fuck?”

“I cheat,” Kuei said, raising an eyebrow as if startled, but Barton could see the smirk in the gleam of his dark eyes. “None of you ever knew the rules well enough to realize it.”

Shostakov paused on his way to his mess tent when he heard shouting and saw a mixed group of SHIELD and Bastion personnel standing around in a large circle. He wandered over and peered over the group, heaving a heavy sigh when he saw Kuei and Barton brawling in the dirt with mahjong tiles scattered everywhere around them. Barton was losing, and Shostakov knew he was going to spend the rest of his evening finding the small white tiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean.
> 
> USA Hockey Magazine is a real thing.
> 
> I have been informed it is possible to cheat at mahjong. I'm not sure how one would do it though.


	66. Chapter 66

Marta carefully lined her top lid with a slick of black gel eyeliner. It felt strange to see herself in the mirror with concealer masking the bag’s beneath her eyes and softening her crowsfeet and wrinkles. She’d spent so long more worried about moving quickly than her appearance and even more after that just not caring as she recovered. It didn’t look like her in the mirror anymore with lined eyes darkly and a fake flush to her pallid cheeks. Emma had even brought some sort of ‘nude’ lipstain. Marta put down the eyeliner and dabbed on the stain, watching it pool in the chapped parts of her lip. Pressing a tissue against her mouth to blot, she exhaled a measured breath.  
It wasn’t like Aaron would care. He understood what different kinds of makeup on women meant and when it was unusual that it was missing. All he cared about was spotting things that didn’t belong, potential threats. Makeup and his attraction to Marta didn’t correlate in his head. But she had to do something. Her husband was coming back from the war, and other people didn’t think like Aaron.

The dress was a new acquisition, purchased with her first SHIELD paycheck. It was a simple sundress covered in exotic orange flowers with a modest hemline that fell just below her knees. She had an oversized white cardigan to go over it since, despite it being fall, everyone still at the air conditioners cranked up to freezing. The ballet flats had been issued to her by SHIELD. Though why they had casual women’s shoes in tan to issue still puzzled her.

Painted up and dressed, she opened the bathroom door. Agent Coulson was sitting on her couch. The TV was turned on, tuned in to one of Coulson’s terrible reality shows full of women with British accents and screaming children. He raised an eyebrow. “You look very nice, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Agent Coulson,” she replied crisply picking up her small purse. “I’m ready. What time does Aaron’s flight arrive?”

“Change of plans. You won’t be meeting him at the airport.” Coulson turned off the TV and stood up. “He’ll be waiting for us at the compound, ready for you to take him home.”

Marta swallowed back a sudden bought of nervous nausea. “Why?”

Coulson took her arm, patting it reassuringly as he led her to the elevator. “Apparently he came in a bit dinged up but not seriously damaged. Just enough that Medical wanted to run a few more tests. I believe he’s with Emma right now.”

The bland platitudes just made Marta scowl. For Aaron to be damaged at all suggest a severity that she wasn’t comfortable with. “Aaron doesn’t get dinged up. I should know. How bad?”

“Apparently, he didn’t eat much while he was missing,” Coulson replied crisply. “You’ll have access to all of his medical files, of course.”

Scowl deepening, Marta snapped, “he has abnormally high caloric and nutritional needs because of his modifications. Malnutrition is a serious issue for him since the deterioration is exponential, and the treatment has to be accelerated.” She slid into the back seat of the car as Coulson closed the door behind her. The unreality of being driven everywhere like some sort of VIP had long since faded.

“I’m sure they’ve treated you husband well, Doctor Shearing,” Coulson said as he pulled out into traffic. “He was quite the hero I heard, carried the team’s medic most of the way back after they ran into some insurgents and had to abandon their gear.”

It sounded like Aaron. Aaron had carried her so many times, down walls and up cliffs, through alleys. He’d run for miles with her on his back like a monkey when they were in Australia, called it PT. That had been for fun. If one of his squadmates had needed him, he would have carried the man to the edge of the Earth and back. It didn’t mean SHIELD appreciated it. Byer hadn’t. “It doesn’t mean they won’t want to see what happens if he doesn’t get what he needs. Aaron’s one of a kind after all .” She didn’t mean to sound so tired. Her cynical snarl did shut Coulson up.

SHIELD’s Arizona compound was on the grounds of the Boneyard - the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration group - just outside of Tuscon. SHIELD worked out a series of aircraft hangers that no longer maintained or stripped down the rows of old aircraft and sundry parts that lined the grounds. To get to the facility meant driving through the gate and then through the long rows of old cargo planes that took up acres. They were used for parts reclamation and were in various states of being dismantled. It was a strangely eerie sort of mundanity, off the beaten path where the tour buses ran or official visitors might ask to see.

Coulson parked the car in the shell of an old Hercules. Two black clad soldiers were waiting for them, but between them, in her blue scrubs and sensible white sneakers, was Emma. “He’s okay,” she told Marta immediately. “Also, he eats like a horse. I have no idea how you feed him.”

“He mostly feeds the both of us actually,” Marta said, sagging a little in relief. “Can see him?”

“Yes,” Emma said with a small smile. “Follow me, Doctor. I have your husband’s file right here.” She pulled the manila file out from where it had been tucked under her arm and offered it to Marta.

Marta took it, flipped it open, and fell into step next to Emma as she read. Aaron’s bloodwork, processed just an hour before, looked good. If he had been on short rations, the damage seemed to have repaired itself. The rest of the file confirmed that, other than a strange aversion to hospital food, Aaron was well on his way back to equilibrium.

The inside of the hanger looked nothing like the outside. Instead of tin walls and Plexiglas windows, the inside had been reinforced with real walls and a two floor hospital with private rooms. Marta hadn’t even realized where she’d been until Coulson had taken her to the apartment in downtown Tuscon. Emma didn’t lead her to the area where the rooms had no windows except for the observation window across from the bed and all the beds had straps. Instead, they were headed for the standard examination rooms used for minor injuries and agent physicals.

A series of red and green cards hung on the solid, wooden doors indicated occupation. Emma confidently walked over to room twelve, which had a green card with a black strip in the center hanging on it, and knocked. “Agent Shearing. It’s Emma. I’ve got your wife with me.”

“Come in,” Aaron said, his voice muffled by the door. Emma pushed the door open, and Aaron was right there. He looked healthy, if a bit thin, and was tanned on every inch of visible skin. The clothes looked military issue, fatigue pants, khaki shirt, a cloth belt in olive drab, and desert boots, but they were clean.

Marta could feel Emma preparing, not moving but just gathering herself. It was reassuring. Clutching the strap of her purse, Marta walked into the examination room. “Hey, Doc,” Aaron rumbled, tired but not in the bone deep way Marta had heard last time they’d talked.

“Hello, Aaron,” she said not quite able to bring herself to reach out for him. “I’m here to take you home.”

“Sounds good.” He pushed himself off the table onto his feet. There was a sea bag in the corner with ‘SHEARING’ stenciled on in black paint. It bulged as he lifted it by the strap and threw it over his shoulder. The movement was effortless. Aaron extended his free hand hesitantly towards her. She’d been the mother of his child the last time they’d touched, they’d kissed.

A kiss was too much for public, too loaded, even if Emma was doing her best to bodily block the view from the door. Marta took her husband’s hand. It felt a failure of some sort. Even though Aaron squeezed her hand and smiled.

They walked out of the exam room down the hall together. Aaron’s grip was warm and dry. It should have been familiar, but there was something alien about the air brushing past her knees and the thud of his boots. 

Coulson was waiting for them at the car. He popped the trunk for Aaron’s bag and introduced himself. “Agent Phil Coulson. I’m your wife’s handler.”

Aaron tossed his bag in the trunk. “Sir,” he said coolly as he opened the door and helped Marta into the car. He crawled into the backseat through the opposite door, so Marta wouldn’t have to fuss with her skirt sliding against the upholstery. As soon as he was buckled in, he found her hand again. They rode in silence back to the apartment. Coulson even left the radio off.

The silence stayed as Aaron retrieved his bag and walked with Marta into their new home. Rosalind came shooting out of the closet with a loud noise of joy. Marta leaned over to stroke the cat, murmuring, “Hello, lovely.” She lifting the mewling bundle of fur up into her arms, cradling Rosalind close.

“Oh,” Aaron breathed, eyes wide at the sight of the Siamese kitten. “Hello, gorgeous. Who are you?” He carefully extended his fingers for her to sniff.

“Rawsy, Rosalind,” Marta said nuzzling the kitten’s fur. “She’s been keeping me company.” Rosalind decided that this new person smelled enough like Marta he must be okay. She butted her head demandingly into his fingers until he carefully started stroking her ears. “She’s very sweet.”  
Aaron stroked his hand down Rosalind’s spine until the kitten was purring and sprawled in Marta’s arms.

“She is,” he agreed. His bag thumped to the floor as he heaved it over to the space next to the couch. “I’m surprised she’s getting anywhere near me with how I stink though. Bathroom?”

Marta pointed down the short hallway with her closet at the end and a door on either side. “Right-hand door. Towels are in the linen cupboard inside.”

Aaron nodded, “Thanks, Doc.” He headed for the bathroom, tugging off his shirt.

With a stroke of inspiration, Marta called after him, “I’ll order in dinner. How hungry are you?”

“Very,” Aaron replied with a warm grin for her. “What’re we eating?”

Decisively, Marta said, “Indian. Lots of it.” 

She was plating up steaming curry and a big pile of naan for him when he came out of the bathroom. He had one of her cheap towels tied around his waist, and her breath caught when he shook the water out of his hair, relaxed like he had been in all of their cheap apartments and shitty hotel rooms. They’d cropped his hair short in Afghanistan. It was all damp spikes as he ran his fingers through it. Catching her looking, his quietly content look fell into a much softer, unsure little boy smile. His fingers went from his hair to sliding self-consciously down the cut of his pectorals and abdominals, trying to wipe away the remaining water. If he was a bit skinny, it didn’t make the lizard part of her brain any less pleased to see how beautiful her husband was.  
Clearing her throat, she held out the plate, “Lamb curry. Go ahead.”

“Just let me get dressed,” Aaron said, heading for his bag.

“You don’t have to,” Marta blurted out, flushing. Sternly, she reminded herself this was her husband, and she’d been used to regular sex for a long time before everything had happened. The physiological conditioning was still there, reminding her how good being with Aaron felt, the drive to strengthen their emotional bond with an oxytocin cocktail. Even if she didn’t know where they were going from here, or if she was ready to be touched again, this was hers. Aaron had agreed to that. And if she wanted to make sure SHIELD hadn’t damaged Aaron, that was her business as well.

After all, she’d told the therapist she’d stop having the dreams of Aaron on a table with his chest cracked open and his organs laid out and neatly labeled. The last dream where she’d reached out for him only to watch a bloody Y stain his t-shirt as he collapsed to ground with his guts pressing wetly against the cotton containing it, held together only by the peritoneal sac, was a week ago. (Outcome Nine had been incinerated afterwards. Marta hadn’t even considered the woman had a name while pulling her apart.) The dreams where he just stood there while she bled out from between her legs were just a nightly occurrence now. Though the sleeping pills she’d been prescribed helped considerably, since she was able to go back to sleep rather than spending the rest of the night in the lab.

Aaron dropped the towel, pulled on a clean pair of boxers, and collapsed obediently back onto the couch. “Okay, Doc.” He accepted the plate and dug in enthusiastically.

She watched him eat, frowning. “Did they not feed you?”

“Institutional food,” Aaron said around a mouth full of naan. “Not MREs. Brought back some bad memories.” He swallowed the mouthful. “Just wanted to get home really.”

Marta just dumped the basmati rice directly into the container of curry and brought it over, so Aaron wouldn’t have to get up for seconds every few minutes. There was curry and saag paneer and vindaloo. Marta ate most of the vindaloo, but Aaron ate both orders of naan, the rest of the food, and still managed to down the complimentary rice pudding as well. Rosalind had hopped up into Marta’s chair, pawing at Marta’s leg in hopes of meat scraps.

The preseason games were just starting, and Aaron hooked Marta’s laptop to the television to screen the Wild versus the Blackhawks. Jeff Mandy was playing with the Wild’s prospects. Aaron said the Wild were thinking about placing him on waivers if his game didn’t get better. Marta didn’t understand Aaron’s fascination with what was obvious a third rate player, even if he was making it professionally, but Aaron followed him religiously whenever there was an option.

It was habit now for Marta to pet Rosalind and read her book while Aaron cleaned up the remains of supper, glancing over his shoulder to keep an eye on the game. It was almost like before the baby. If they’d ever had been able to stop running, this is what they would have been. The clink of dishes and humid smell of the soap creeping through the apartment. The murmur of the announcers on television mingling with the loud crack of the puck and scrape of skates over ice. _The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks_ open to page forty-seven in her lap, and Rosalind purring at her side. Aaron occasionally snarling at the television in French or some other language she didn’t know. Except, if there had never been a baby, she would be on the couch with her legs sprawled all the way out, and Aaron would come and lean against her with his body tucked around her knees as he watched television.

They weren’t there yet. Marta wasn’t sure she’d ever be there again even though it felt so good just to see Aaron moving in her peripheral vision. Aaron finished cleaning, watched the game, then the highlight reel for the week. Then it was nine thirty, and they were both dozing. Marta nearly jumped out of her skin when Aaron gently shook her awake. “It’s okay, Doc,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.” He kissed her crown. It wasn’t a husband’s kiss, but Aaron only knew how to be loyal. He’d loved her too deeply to ever really stop.

Marta swallowed. “That’d be best,” she murmured, hoarse. “Aaron…”

“Tomorrow,” Aaron sighed, resigned. “Just, tomorrow, Marta. I’m too tired tonight.”

Maybe she was getting better at being a wife (too little, too late) because she just said, “Okay. Let me get you some blankets.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the amazing Juleorean who turned this around preternaturally quickly.
> 
> To be 'put on waivers' means that a hockey team has put your contract up for any other team who wants to buy it. It's not a good thing.
> 
> The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an interesting read. I'd recommend it to anyone who interested in medical ethics.


	67. Chapter 67

Aaron woke up first. He rolled off the couch and landed lightly on the floor, stretching before falling into a series of pushups. After that, he rolled over and did situps. Daily PT had become part of his routine again, and he didn’t mind the habit. Out of his bag, he pulled a t-shirt, fatigue pants, and sneakers and socks. He dressed for his run and carefully walked over to Marta’s bedroom.

Marta was curled up under a light blanket. The collar of a too big t-shirt, a very old one of Aaron’s, pulled awkwardly across her shoulder. Rosalind was curled up at the back of Marta’s neck, on top of the unruly, curling pile of dark hair. Aaron had no idea how the kitten’s weight hadn’t woken her up. She would shove him in her sleep if he pulled on her hair.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he carefully hooked his fingers around her exposed hand and squeezed. Marta muttered in her sleep, eyes slitting open. At her neck, Rosalind made an unhappy noise. “Going for a run,” Aaron whispered. “I’ll make breakfast when I get back.”

Marta grunted and closed her eyes again. Rosalind stared poisonously at Aaron. “Oh, kitten,” Aaron sighed, ruffling her ears. He left as quietly as he’d come, closing the door behind him. Downstairs, two men in black were sitting behind the security desk. They nodded to Aaron as he pushed open the glass door to the outside and broke into a jog.

The sun was just starting to rise, so the heat of the day wasn’t oppressive. Aaron was actually a bit chilly until the run warmed him up. He ran down the dusty, broken, concrete sidewalks that seemed to be everywhere. Two miles out. Two miles back. Just enough to stretch his legs. Carrying Joe through Afghanistan had put Aaron off marathoning.

He didn’t bother showering before making breakfast. Opening the door to the fridge, he was hesitant. His inclination was to make a big, American style breakfast like Marta had enjoyed before the pregnancy, but, last time he’d cooked for her, all she had wanted was strong savory and salty flavors with maybe a few sweet pickles or bland carbs.

Aaron ended up splitting the difference. He made rice porridge and chopped up the various pickled leftovers into small dishes before making some soft-boiled eggs and frying the rest of the bacon he found in a plastic bag. The table still looked a little light. He wanted to make sure Marta got enough food since he was still starving all of the time. So Aaron cut up some apples and bananas, topping them with honey, before starting the coffee.

While looking for the coffee, he found tins of cat food and set one on the counter next to the pink ceramic bowl with paw prints on it. The smell of coffee got Marta moving, as it always had. Mornings after they’d found out about the baby had been rough as Marta had cut back on her coffee intake. She sat at the table, cradling Rosalind to her chest and blinking owlishly. Aaron poured her a cup of coffee with milk and set it in front of her.

“Thank you, Aaron,” Marta said thickly, still on autopilot. She let Aaron take Rosalind away from her. Aaron settled the cat on the counter next to the bowl and opened the tin of food, scraping it into the dish. Rosalind immediately perked up.

Aaron dished out two bowls of the porridge and sat down at the table, handing one to Marta. He bolted down his cup of black coffee before he started eating, since he only drank it at all for the caffeine. They passed the dishes back and forth silently, not bothering with any utensils but the spoons for their porridge. Usually food and coffee helped Marta cross from functional to awake, but she was quiet and eating more of the fruit, bacon, and eggs than the pickles.

Two bowls of gruel and everything Marta hadn’t eaten later, Aaron settled back down at the table with a second cup of coffee, heavily doctored with sugar and milk, after bussing the dishes to the sink. Marta was on her third cup. “I’d like to stay until the end of the week,” Aaron said quietly. “Just to make sure this place is okay.”

“I’d like that too,” Marta replied, turning her cup slowly between her hands. “But Aaron…”

“It’s okay, Doc,” Aaron said, and the words burned in the back of his throat. “I’ll do whatever you want at the end of the week, but can we just try?”

Marta looked down into her coffee like she could divine the outcome with it. “Sure. We can try. But I honestly don’t think it’s going to work, Aaron. I’m…I can’t be who I was before JJ.”

“It’s okay,” Aaron repeated, exhausted. “I left you, Marta. I get that. I know we didn’t have any choice, but I still left you and our son when I should have been there. You were alone when you found out about JJ, and you shouldn’t have been.” His shoulders were slumped as he too stared down into his coffee, not seeing it but instead a stark scene of Marta seeing their son’s body the first and only time she saw their child. “I’m sorry I put you in that position.”

“I knew it was a risk.” Marta’s voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “I knew there was a risk that we’d be caught and bad things would happen. I accepted that. That’s not on you. But I…I never wanted children. I know we didn’t talk about it much, but I never had kids and thought I never would. Losing JJ wasn’t something that I was prepared for at all. Not even conceptually.”

Aaron’s face crumpled, “Marta.”

She waved him off. “No, Aaron. This is not about you. I chose to keep the baby, and you made it very clear it was /my/ decision. You would have supported whatever I chose, and I know that. But I was too scared to think about the reality of the situation. The fact JJ existed at all was a goddamn miracle according to science. I thought that maybe our luck would hold.” Marta shook her head and corrected herself, “No. I assumed our luck would hold and refused to consider anything else. I needed JJ to be okay.”

Her husband knew her well. Aaron tilted his head slightly, inquiring but not judging. His face was neutral, but she could see the unnamed fear in the way he watched her just a little too closely. “Why did you need JJ, Doc?”

Marta smiled, bitter and mean. “I thought if we had a baby, it would be easier to love you the way you need.” The joke was always on her, the one who understood her own biochemistry. If she had just aligned enough factors, years of evolution should have pushed her right where she needed to be.

“Fuck.” Aaron dropped his head down onto the table like a puppet with its strings cut. “Fuck, Marta.” He wasn’t crying, but it was a near thing.

Marta couldn’t help herself. She stood up and came around the table, draping herself over his back and tucking her arms around his chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, kissing the shell of his ear lightly. “Aaron, I’m sorry. I swear to God I wanted to love you. You never did anything I didn’t want.”

“I love you,” Aaron said and he was hoarse. “I still love Jason too. Even fucking Byer I can’t shake. I can’t help myself. Did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Marta said honestly. “You are designed to have a locus, a single person to control you, to feel affection for, but I don’t know about staying in love. It’s possible you’re just inclined to long term affection and we exacerbated it. The mental modifications did cause a…magnification of preexisting behaviors over time. Which is why the virals had to be integrated with a complete training program. Outcome Three had some compulsive tendencies. It manifested fullblown OCD when he was up to his final dosage. Your drive to love though, it’s not absolute.” She fell silent then hesitantly added, “There was an experiment to test whether your habit of bonding would be a liability. The Colonel set up a situation in which your loyalties came into conflict, him against your main trainer I believe.”

Aaron did make a dry, awful sound at that. Marta flinched. “The day I killed the Rasar,” he said dully. “It wasn’t just stopping her, it was a fucking test too? Fuck. Shouldn’t be surprised. Byer’s a practical sonovabitch. Two birds, one stone.” He breathed slowly, in through his mouth, out through his nose. “Can you fix me? Because this hurting all the fucking time is shit, Doc.”

“Oh, Aaron,” Marta said, pressing herself closer. “The damage is done. Extensive behavioral modification therapy in combination with drug treatments or maybe electroshock might be able to shake some of the programming loose. Maybe help with the way you obsessively curate your bonds even without continued input. But the rest of it, there’s ways to make it stop. Treadstone made it stop. You saw what the result is.”

“And if I wanted the Treadstone procedure?” Aaron demanded dully.

Marta squeezed him gently. “I would do it if I thought it would help, Aaron. If there was anything we’d turned up that I thought could undo some of the programming I would try it. Fuck SHIELD’s restrictions.” She nuzzled his neck with a grimace, willing him to believe her. The thought of Aaron undergoing the Treadstone procedure was horrifying. Outcome had modified his genes, changed the way he moved, made him better in most ways and worse in others. It hadn’t changed his ability to connect with other people, to be happy, to love. The thought of Aaron stripped of what Outcome had left him wasn’t just a nightmare. It was a death sentence for Aaron, since a Treadstone asset was much harder to manage than any Outcome asset.

“Well, shit,” Aaron finally said wetly. One of his hands settled over hers, pressing it to his chest. “At least it was you, Doc. If I’m safe for anyone to be around, it’s you. I won’t hurt anyone else, right? I don’t want to be a fucking psycho.”

“You aren’t,” Marta reassured him fiercely. “You’re just… genuinely sweet and loving, Aaron. If JJ had survived you would have been the perfect father, whatever you needed to be for him. Just like you were exactly what I needed when we ran. If they had kept us together, you would have been exactly what I needed now too. But we were separated. And it’s not working anymore.”

“I could stick around for awhile,” Aaron offered. “See if we can mesh again.” He sounded lost though.

Marta shook her head against his neck. “No, Aaron. We’re not.” Aaron’s shoulders shuddered. “Oh, honey,” Marta said. She’d never been able to bring herself to use the effusive pet names Aaron had liked, just always used his name. Now the endearment fell easily from her lips as she felt the years between them. He really was a kid in so many ways, young enough to be a teenage mistake. Young enough to believe in first loves. “Oh, honey, I am so sorry I failed you again.” She wrapped herself around him tightly.

Aaron turned his set, tucking his face against her bust. He was crying, hot, wet, and silent. His fingers clung desperately to the loose folds of her pajama shirt like she was the last thing in the world, or he was a child looking desperately to his mother to make everything right. Marta rubbed his back and neck, kissed the top of his head, and sniffed back her own tears. She was the one hurting him, but she was the only one who would offer him any comfort.

He cried for longer than she’d ever seen him cry before, shaking the whole time. The whole time, she pet him and hummed soothingly. She didn’t tell him to stop even though he was breaking her heart. He’d done everything she’d ever asked him, and what he wanted was permission to love her. This was the last thing she could give back to him.

They spent the rest of the week drifting around each other. Aaron slept, ran, cooked, and watched hockey while playing with Rosalind. Marta read and worked in her lab. She did her best to cover everything they’d ever done to Aaron in as much detail as she could remember. More detail than she was giving SHIELD. There was no talk of divorce. When Marta had mentioned it in passing, thinking that Aaron might appreciate ending their marriage officially as he made sure they’d begun it, he’d flinched so hard she didn’t bring it up again. They would live separately, but their relationship would remain on paper. It didn’t bother Marta at all. She was done with relationships for the foreseeable future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the lovely Julorean, and, as usual, I fussed with it a bit after she sent it back. All mistakes are mine.


	68. Chapter 68

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hover over the French text for a translation of the complex statements.

Barton leaned on the horn again. Shearing jogged through the side door slid down the railing with his sea bag over his shoulder. Barton popped the trunk, frowning. The plan had been to have Barton operate out of the apartment to keep his wife stable. There was no reason for Shearing to be taking his bag with him.

The trunk slammed, and Shearing came around and slid to the passenger seat. “Morning, sir,” he said, tired.

“Morning, Shearing,” Barton grunted in return. “We’re stopping by Starbucks. Coffee at the compound is shit.”

Shearing nodded in acceptance. “Does SHIELD have bachelor quarters?” he asked blandly, looking out the window at passing traffic.

“Yeah.” Barton hit the horn as some blue hair cut him off going ten under. “Trouble with the missus?”

“She needs some more time,” Shearing replied naturally. “I told her I’d find somewhere else to bivouac for awhile.”

Barton snorted. He doubted Shearing’s ice bitch of a wife needed time, so much as an excuse to offload her husband now that he was a liability. “I’ll get you set up in the barracks.” He finally escaped from the behind the bluehair and managed to pull into the strip mall where Starbucks had a drive through. “You want anything?” he asked as he rolled up to the window.

“Coffee, black,” Shearing said, rooting around in the front pocket of his fatigues. 

“I’ve got it.” Barton waved him off. He reached through the window to accept the cups when his cell went off. “Shit.” Barton passed the cups to Shearing, who raised an eyebrow. There was nowhere in the car for him to go. With a sigh, Barton answered, “Yes?”

“Agent Barton,” Latesha said wearily, “Jacques got over the wall again. I am so sorry. They’ve been doing some renovations, and the new girl didn’t know to watch him.”

Barton slammed his head into the steering wheel. “How long ago?”

Latesha sounded grim, “Forty-five minutes. She went looking for him, and he’s not speaking English today.”

“Motherfucking shit,” Barton droned out in a weary monotone. “I’ll be right over. Call the emergency number and have them put out an APB for him.” He hung up and looked over at Shearing. The other man was sipping his coffee and looking out the window with far too much intent. “There’s a personal issue I have to deal with. You’re coming along for the ride apparently.”

Noncommittally Shearing said, “Yes, sir.”

Barton fiddled with his phone before showing it to Shearing. “We’re looking for a man. This is Jacques Duquesne, five-four, wiry as fuck, and probably wearing a Canadiens jersey. You know the Canadiens?”  
“NHL team, out of Montreal. Hate the Bruins. Yeah, I know them.” The crisp, precise response startled Barton. Shearing didn’t smile, but there was something about the way his eyes narrowed slightly that suggested amusement.

“I don’t suppose you speak French too?” Barton snapped, grumpy at being startled.

“Oui. Je parle francais umpa,” Shearing replied with a muddy accent. “It came in handy in Africa.”

“There’s a good chance Jacques is not going to respond well to English,” Barton explained, relaxing. “He’s also a mean bastard and faster and stronger than he looks. He might try and fight you or run.” Shearing nodded. “Don’t hurt him. I will fucking kill you if there’s so much as a hair out of place, Shearing.”

The quiet, hard, “Yes, sir” meant Shearing knew Barton was serious. Behind them, a car started honking. Barton ignored it, staring down Shearing until the other man looked away.

Barton went the back way to the nursing home, driving slowly through the side streets, looking for Jacques. The coffee shops were bustling though, and it was hard to spot any individual faces. Coffee, poutine, tourtiere, and a lack of decent wine were the main motivators for Jacques to escape the nursing home. Best case scenario, Jacques had just decided that pastrami was an acceptable alternative to a proper Quebecois smoked meat sandwich and had gone to find one.

Of course, Barney Barton was never that lucky. He pulled up to the nursing home and parked in the visitor parking lot. The manicured walking paths and verdant gardens were filled with people in various states of mobility being attended by nurses in maroon scrubs with the name of the nursing home embroidered on the breast pocket. Just visible was a wall that went around the back of the building.

Latesha was a matronly black woman with a headful of meticulous dreadlocks, many capped with small, colorful beads, and smile lines around her mouth and eyes. She wasn’t smiling as Barton threw himself out of the car and jogged up the path with Aaron at his shoulder. “Any news?” Barton demanded.

The nurse shook her head, “No. We’ve called the emergency number, but not the police yet. I’ve got every spare orderly I can find out looking on foot and by car. We’ve called all the taxi services and swept public transportation too. Our people are mostly north-south.”

“Okay, this is Agent Aaron Shearing. He’s with me. We’ll head out on foot and remain in contact by cell phone.” Barton turned to Aaron. “Focus on coffee shops, delis, and any bar with a wine list. You find him, you call me. Head west. I’ll be to the east.”

“Yessir.” Shearing left at a jog.

Barton shared a grimace with Latesha. “Try not to let him around the new staff anymore, please,” he said, exhausted.

“Believe me, I won’t,” Latesha replied, voice steely. “I’m setting up his room for a cool down period. It’ll be ready when we find him.”

Aaron cut left, heading down the first major western heading street he saw. He stopped at each establishment that seemed to fit Barton’s description. His fatigues were at least black, and he unbloused them to hide his boots. Still, he was uncomfortably martial looking. He tried to hide it by dropping his shoulders and moving at an uneven lope. People were looking anyways.

He was two blocks down when the shouting started. It sounded familiar. Aaron picked up his pace when he realized why. Jean-Paul’s accent when he was speaking English had been thick enough they’d sometimes had to subtitle him when he did media interviews. The shouting was not quite as bad as Jean-Paul at practice, but the Quebecois accent was noticeably heavy.

Aaron ducked into the bar where the noise seemed to be coming from. A short, slender man with silver hair, dressed in a Canadiens jersey sized for someone wearing pads, jeans, and slipper socks, was arguing with the bartender. “I am over twenty-one, and I have money, now give me beer. I want to watch the game, salopard.”

The bartender didn’t look impressed. “You’re not wearing shoes, sir. I need you to leave.” He was looking around, and Aaron knew trouble was coming.

“Jacques, t’fais quoi?” Aaron demanded, matching as much as Jean-Paul’s lilt as he could remember. “Barney’s looking for you,” he added in English.

Jacques turned. His jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. “Clint, mon fauconnet. T’es revenu.” The old man threw himself at Aaron with an athleticism startling for the wane cast of his face and obvious age. Aaron caught him easily, flinching as Jacques wrapped his arms around Aaron’s shoulders and held him tight. “You came home,” Jacques said thickly. “You came home, mon fauconnet.” His hands ran through Aaron’s hair, down his back, across his arms. Jacques checked Aaron’s hands like he was looking for injuries, seeming to count fingers, before taking Aaron’s face between his palms. “J’savais t’reviendrais a moi, mon fiston.”

Aaron grimaced. He patted Jacques back soothing as he pulled out the cheap cell phone issued to him by SHIELD. He hit the speed dial and nodded to the bartender, who looked much more relaxed. “Barton, I’ve got him. I’m three blocks southwest of the facility in a bar called Putney’s. He’s a bit confused.” He nodded and murmured assent when Barton ordered him to stay put with Jacques.

“Is Barney being un salaud?” Jacques sucked air between his teeth and waved it. “Never mind. You will tell me everything. Barman, two beers. My son is home from the war, and my other son will be here soon. We are finally together again.”

The bartender raised an eyebrow. “Just pull a half for each of us,” Aaron sighed. “I’ll pay.” Jacques gave him a sharp look. “J’suis de garde, Jacques.” The older man relaxed, keeping his hand on Aaron’s elbow. They took two the stools. Jacques couldn’t seem to stop himself from touching Aaron’s arm or back. The bartender pulled them both half a pint glass of light beer.

"J’achete,” Jacques said, waving off Aaron and tossing a ten on the bar. “Where have you been, Clint? My memory est pas le pied, but you have been gone very long.”

“Afghanistan. I can’t say more,” Aaron said, because it was basically the truth.

Jacques scowled. “You were done with that shite.” Aaron shrugged. “Where did you get duty from?” Jacques asked, mournfully rhetoric. “I didn’t teach you stupidity, but yet. Ah, mon fidele fauconnet.” Jacques ruffled Aaron’s hair again, and Aaron couldn’t help but lean into it. There was something familiar about it even though Aaron couldn’t quite place why. “Did you at least catch the last game? We won.”

“No TV. How was it?” Aaron asked glancing up at the television where some football postgame was playing. Jacques broke into a mixture of French and English as he described the Canadiens game versus the Leafs. Aaron had never heard of the players he was talking about until he mentioned Patrick Roy, who’d been with the Colorado Avalanche for as long Aaron had known about hockey.

Barton was breathless when he finally slammed through the door to the bar. Jacques looked over and sighed, “Barney, why didn’t you tell me Clint was back?”

Barton recoiled, his whole body drawing back. “I… It was a surprise. Then you wandered off. Scared the hell out of all of us.”

“I wanted a beer,” Jacques said petulantly. “The game will be on soon. Resterez et veillez avec moi."

“We’ll watch the game with you,” Barton said wearily, “/if/ you go back to your apartment.”  
Jacques mouth pursed, but he looked over at Aaron. “Bien. I don’t want to walk.”

Barton slumped with relief. “That’s fine, the facility sent a car. Finish your beer, and we’ll make it back in time to catch the lineup overview.”

Content with the deal, Jacques quietly finished his beer and let Aaron and Barton escort him to the car. Latesha looked Jacques over before the game, getting some clean slippers and taking him to restroom. Barton popped a disk into the DVD player. It seemed that the game was on whenever Jacques felt like watching one. Latesha brought Jacques back from the washroom, and he settled himself on the couch between ‘ses gars’. Reaching up with both hands, he ruffled their hair. Barton started the DVD.

Jacques was a little concerned when he didn’t recognize the Canadiens lineup, but Barton was able to soothe away the initial confusion. The three of them watched the game intently. Though Aaron could see Barton had watched this particular recording before, since he was anticipating the goals. The Canadiens lost, but Jacques wasn’t too put, pleased that he’d gotten to watch with company.

On the drive to SHIELD, Aaron finally asked, “So, older brother or younger brother?”

“Younger, by four years,” Barton said grimly, keeping his eyes firmly on the road. “He died eighteen months ago. Right after we put Jacques in the home. Motorcycle accident.”

“And Jacques thinks I’m him,” Aaron murmured, looking at the cars go past.

Barton was quiet, then he said, “You look like him. We have… Clint and I had different fathers. He took after his father, with blue eyes and dirty blond hair. Jacques’ too far gone to understand what happened to Clint. I’m not surprised he got confused.”

Aaron thought about Jacques. He wasn’t physically similar at all to Barton, and he had the wrong coloring to be Clint’s father. “He’s not your father.”

A broken, mean laugh escaped Barton before he could bite it back. “Trust me. Jacques’ no one’s biological father. He was good to us though. Clint especially.” They both fell silent. As Barton flicked on the turn signal to take the exit to the Boneyard, he forced out, “You like hockey?”

“Yeah,” Aaron replied cautiously.

“Today was… better than Jacques been in a long time. Usually all he can do is yell at me about where Clint is. Would you consider watching the occasional game with him, with us?” Barton cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It’s not a requirement, but I’d consider it a favor.”

Aaron made sure his shrug was so casual it was almost dismissive. “Sure. I like watching hockey.”

“Thanks,” Barton said. He drove through the rusting frames of planes too old to salvage and parked in the same lot as the Boneyard technicians.

Before Barton opened the door, Aaron asked softly, “What is it?”

Barton swallowed hard and didn’t bother prevaricating by asking what Aaron meant. “Early onset Alzheimers . They think. It’s an unusual case I guess. Anyways, eventually Jacques will forget everything, me, Latesha, fencing, hockey, Clint. I’ve just got to keep him comfortable until then. They say it’ll be easier when he doesn’t remember at all.”

“The lying doesn’t make it any better,” Aaron observed. He couldn’t hide the empathy. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry about?” Barton snapped. “It’s not your problem.”

Aaron shook his head, “My son died before he was even born. It’s not the same as watching your father forget you while you stand right there, but I know what it is to lose who you love. I know it feels like betrayal. And it’s shit. So, fuck, man. I’m sorry.” He barked out the last words, a soldier. Just because him and Barton were stuck with each other didn’t mean they had to hate each other all the time.

Barton turned off the engine. He pulled out the keys and fiddled with them. “So am I, about the kid. It is a pile of shit isn’t it? You made a deal, and you never got him back anyways. If I’d known, I would have let you run.”

“Where to?” Aaron shrugged. “It’s alright, Barton. You didn’t make any worse than it had to be. At least with SHIELD, Marta’s got money and a safe, comfortable place to live. It’s better than I managed for her alone. I’ll take what I can get. Don’t have many choices when you’re blacklisted.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Barton sighed wryly. “Come on, Shearing. Let’s go earn a paycheck. We both got family to feed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by Julorean. Terrible French by me. In the comics Jacques is a bad guy, but I was a little tired of the evil stepparent trope. So this Jacques is a good guy. He's also Quebecois, not French.


	69. Chapter 69

Aaron moved into the bachelor quarters for SHIELD enforcement agents. Really, all that meant was a room at a converted motel in downtown Tucson. Breakfast and dinner were hot. Lunch came in brown bags that could be picked up at the desk in the morning. At first, Barton was mostly doing official business that Aaron wasn’t cleared for. So Aaron trained the kids they sent him. And they were kids, despite their navy blue catsuits or black fatigues.

He preferred the cold-eyed women or slender, shaking teenagers just out of high school in the blue SHIELD coveralls to the ex-military assholes in black fatigues. Blue meant agents, of every stripe from computer technician to infiltration. Black meant enforcement. Aaron wore black because that was what he’d been assigned. It didn’t mean he liked it.

Once a week, when they didn’t have a mission, he and Barton would go see Jacques. Sometimes, Jacques didn’t recognize either of them, others he was more lucid, but he never seemed to understand Aaron wasn’t Clint. In the lucid times, he was effusively affectionate with Aaron and Barton, acting they really were just back from deployment.

The missions were mostly eliminations. Barton had a surprisingly light touch though, letting Aaron make his own plans and providing all of the information he asked for. Aaron hadn’t intended to be a killer again. At least SHIELD told him why he was pulling the trigger without telling him it was a favor or need to know. They even let him turn down assignments, though Barton got grumpy when he did. So Aaron swallowed his grimaces more often than not. Still, the loose leash meant Aaron was able to establish some ground rules. No women. No children involved in any way. The rules were the next thing to random, more window dressing than real ethics, but no one challenged them.

A third of his paycheck still went into Marta’s bank account. If he was killed on a mission, she’d get a significant payout and his benefits as his widow. She didn’t want him anymore, but Aaron did his best to take care of her.

Barton seemed content with Aaron’s drive to work. Since there was no reason to stay in Tucson except to catch a couple of full night’s sleep and check in on the trainees, Aaron started asking for dossiers. There was always another one when he asked. It wasn’t until Pakistan that Aaron realized he’d started to slip, just like Marta had warned.

The bullet hadn’t actually hit him. It had grazed low on his arm and a bit across his back. By the time he’d made it back to the safehouse, the cuts had sealed up enough Barton had to scrub ruthlessly to get the mud out of wound. The messy field treatment was still healing when he’d gone to visit Jacques, a long, nasty scrape that looked like road burn.

“Tabernack,” Jacques snarled, reaching both bony, blue-veined hands up to cup Aaron’s face before flying down to lightly examine Aaron’s arm. “Mon fauconnet, what happened?”

“Stood too close to a bullet,” Aaron replied, closing his eyes and stooping to lean into Jacques steely grip. 

“Desole, Jacques. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

Jacques scoffed. He was obviously having a good day. He had recognized Barton and Aaron immediately and didn’t ask why Aaron had been around bullets. His dark eyes were bright, almost manic, with energy and cutting intelligence. Medication had improved Jacques’ coherency and awareness, but it was a rare day he was on fire like this. Barton had mentioned that Jacques had always seemed to have boundless energy before the Alzheimer’s had ruined his reflexes as well as his memory.

“T’es imbecile ,” Jacques sighed, running his thumbs across Aaron’s cheekbones, gentle around the fading bruise on Aaron’s cheek. “I always worry.” He stood on his toes to carefully kiss Aaron’s forehead. “But you are home now.” He rubbed Aaron’s arms, well above the injury, before releasing him. “Viens, Barney.” Barney submitted to his own inspection and fatherly peck on the temple. “You are both too pale. We are walking in le jardin de rocaille.” Jacques took them each proprietarily by the elbow and lead them outside to the largest, xeriscaped garden on the property.

They simply walked in silence for ten minutes. Jacques was obviously enjoying the sunlight and seemed intent as he lead them further along the winding stone paths, past other patients and their minders, until they came to a small gazebo tucked into the corner of the fenced area. Jacques took a seat on one of the shaded slate benches. “Barney, apportez-moi de l'eau, s'il te plaît.”

Barney squinted suspiciously at Jacques, who patted the bench for Aaron to sit. Jacques raised an expectant eyebrow, and Barton sighed. “Oui, Jacques. Un moment.” He headed back for the building at a jog.

Jacques turned to Aaron, “Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas, mon gars?”

Aaron hesitated. Jacques huffed. “I do not pretend to know what has changed and what I forget. I will not ask. Just tell me, why do you look like the bullet should have struck?” He took Aaron’s hands in both of his, squeezing gently.

Licking his lips, Aaron opened his mouth, but English wouldn’t come. Finally he settled on, “Ma femme m'a quitté. I don’t know what comes next.”

“Ah,” Jacques leaned back against the railing, watching Aaron knowingly. “Did I meet her?” Aaron shook his head. It didn’t surprise Jacques. “Have you divorced yet?” The quick headshake made him sigh. “Oh, mon gars doux. Little fool, you must let her fly if she wishes freedom.”

“I did,” Aaron said, a little offended. “I’m not… J’ai pas un connard, Jacques. I haven’t seen her in… a long time. I keep busy.”

Jacques looked unimpressed, looking down at Aaron’s hands where his wedding ring was still tucked firmly against the base of his finger. Aaron’s fingers curled into a defensive fist. Barton came back with the water before Jacques could pry more. The walk continued to a rolling green area where some of the more lucid residents were participating in lawn bowling. Jacques watched enviously as he lingered in the shade. His violent mood swings and habit of escaping when he got bored meant he wasn’t permitted to join most of the outdoor activities besides a morning jog.

“You should bring your bows next time,” he said idly as he watched the game. “I want to see you shoot again.”

“I never kept up, Jacques,” Barton pointed out. “Not that I was very good to begin with.”

Jacques waved his hand. “Clint at least. A show would liven this place up. You can be the victim again.”

“Maybe,” Barton replied evasively. “I’ll talk to Latesha. The old routine might be too lively.”

After making a circuit of the green, Jacques ordered imperiously, “J’ai soif, Clint."

Rolling his eyes at Barton, Aaron sighed, “Oui, Jacques.” He headed for the main office, and its minifridge full of water at a steady trot.

Jacques watched him thoughtfully as he crested the small rise. “Barney, how long has your brother been dead?”

“Jacques,” Barney snapped out, shocked and more than a little unnerved. “J’ai ne pas…”

“Osti de tabernack de calice,” Jacques snarled, turning on the larger man. “Do not lie to me in the language I taught you, mon fils. You know better.”

Barney slumped. “Closer to two years than not,” he said miserably, staring down at his feet.

Jacques nodded wearily. “La picole?"

“More or less,” Barney said, swallowing hard. “He… He only ever listened to you, Papa.” The word came out the Quebecois way.

Calmly, Jacques reached up and wiped the moisture from his eyes. “Who is the poor boy you are forcing to play Clint’s part?”

“Aaron Shearing,” Barney said, coughing to clear the lump in his throat. “New agent. He’s a fucking mess in every way possible.”

“I know,” Jacques said, waving a careless hand. “I am going mad, non un idiota. He is so very lonely, Barney. Even seeing a mad old man who mistakes him for another is a relief. You must do something, or he will simply slip through your fingers.”

Barney couldn’t stop the bitterness from leaking through as he snapped, “Like Clint?”

Jacques shook his head, taking Barney’s face between his hands. He brought the man’s forehead down to his own like he had when Barney was a child, raging against the injustices of the world. “Clint was… Notre fauconnet was never meant for this world, mon petit soldat. He was lost to you before you could have ever saved him. I could only coax him not to fly away for a brief while. Even without this madness, he would have gone.” Jacques closed his eyes. So he wouldn’t have to see the despair in his son’s grief. “This poor boy is not lost to us yet. You can save him.”

“Dis moi quoi faire, Papa,” Barney demanded desperately. “I can’t… I’est trop comme Clint. I’est facile a’ le haïr.”

“Then find someone who can be kind,” Jacques said, standing on his toes to kiss Barney’s forehead, a benediction. “T’es un homme bons, mon fils. J’ai fier de tu. You will find a way.” Barney leaned against Jacques heavily, holding tight to the older man in a way he hadn’t been able to bring himself to as a child. Jacques closed his eyes and wished his mind was less degraded, that he might remember this Barney, who loved Jacques as Jacques loved him, rather than the years of misplaced rage.

Aaron paused a polite distance away as Barton didn’t move from his slump against Jacques as he approached. Jacques bore the not insignificant load with ease. The slight man was full of surprises that way. He didn’t even seem to notice how much heavier Aaron was than expected when doling out bonecrushing hugs.

Barton backed off slowly, and Jacques let him, reaching up and patting Barton’s cheek paternally. Jacques smiled and nodded at Aaron, inviting him back over. They split the cold bottle of water between the three of them on the way back to the main building. Jacques insisted they stayed for lunch, which was surprisingly tasty. The meals came on individual trays with plates and silverware like a homecooked meal rather than institutional food. Aaron ate especially heartily as Jacques cajoled him to cleaning his plate and all the leftovers.

On the ride back to the bachelor quarters, Aaron asked, “What did Jacques mean about bows?”

Barton tensed then forced himself to relax. “Clint was a damn good archer,” he finally forced out, keeping it simple. “He had his own act at thirteen.” Aaron shot Barton a confused look. “Fuck. Okay. Short version,” Barton said crisply. “The old man was a fucking asshole. Clint and I literally ran away and joined the circus to get away. Jacques took us in, took care of us. He was a knifethrower and trick fencer. If it’s got a blade, Jacques can make a show out of it. I had knack for it, Clint too. So Jacques made us part of the act. There was another guy though, real piece of work name of Chisholm, called himself Trick Shot. He did trickshooting, bow, rifle, pistol, whole shebang. He caught Clint watching him practice one time and nearly beat seven shades of shit out of him, except Jacques came running and flattened the bastard. But Clint still really wanted to learn to shoot. So Jacques got Chisholm liquored up at a card game and won lessons for Clint.”

There was a pause as Barton seemed to catch his breath. “Clint was fucking magic with anything ranged, but archery was his first and greatest love. He was so good he was performing solo when he was just a snot-nosed kid. When Jacques started to forget, Clint would do his bit for him to help Jacques remember the good times.”

Aaron looked down at his own hands, realizing why Jacques kept rubbing at his gun calluses and clucking disapprovingly. Clint must have had layers of specialized calluses on both hands that Aaron’s more generalist training didn’t leave. Aaron rubbed his hands together like he was trying to warm them, trying to imagine what Jacques was looking for. “What does he think happened to my hands then?” Aaron asked, puzzled. Jacques’ memory was shot, but it seemed obvious if he’d raised Clint.

“I have no idea,” Barton shrugged. “But I’m not going to argue with that crazy old Frenchie. Are you?” Aaron snorted in agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! Editted by the ever lovely Julorean.


	70. Chapter 70

“Aaron,” Barton breathed, “it’s time.” Aaron’s eyes slitted open. “Temps d’aller, fauconnet,” Barton reiterated gently with a shake of Aaron’s shoulder.

“Oui, boss,” Aaron murmured. He rolled over to where the rifle was already set up and waiting. The scope was in his jacket to keep it warm, and he locked it into place and sighted. Barton’s leg settled across Aaron’s as the other man took up a close spotter’s position next to Aaron. Aaron wasn’t even sure who the target was. Barton had been cagier than usual.

A quarter mile away, the door to the unmarked, marble office building opened. Two men in Spartan black suits with earwigs stepped out, security. A handsome, elderly man in a three piece suit walked out behind them as his bodyguards scanned the area. He was speaking to an Asian man in an equally sharp suit. The older man was smiling, his friend was not.

“Target, sir?” Aaron asked, lining up with the older man initially. “I’ve got eyes on the Caucasian male.”

Barton went stiff. Aaron flipped off his safety in preparation for the kill order. Ten seconds passed. Twenty. “Sir, should I take the shot?”

“Target is the Asian male at your nine o’clock,” Barton said suddenly, almost deflating. “Take the shot when you’re ready. No collateral damage.”

Aaron blinked, pulling back from the scope to verify what he’d heard. Barton wanted the Caucasian man dead. Aaron could feel it. “You heard me, fauconnet. Tirez sur l'homme asiatique. In your own time, Shearing.” Barton pushed down, slow and hard, on Aaron's shoulder to get him to focus.

Switching targets, Aaron realigned his arms and adjusted his scope for the evening breeze that was picking up. He pulled the trigger twice, feeling the rifle buck back into his shoulder. The Asian man dropped. The security men and the older man kept moving like nothing had happened, disappearing into black SUVs that rolled up right after Aaron pulled the trigger. Aaron and Barton observed, making sure the Asian man stayed down. Two bullets to the chest were hard to fake, but Aaron liked to be thorough.

“Target down,” Aaron finally decided. “Let’s go.” He started disassembling the rifle, slipping the pieces into the backpack style case. Barton slipped the hi-tech binoculars and water bottles back into his bag. They were dressed to blend in with the rest of the crowd in Tashkent. Both Aaron and Barton were carrying press credentials for a small, specialty travel magazine. They had camera gear to stack on top of their sniper gear. Both of them were dressed in battered cargo pants and collared shirts and t-shirts intended for hiking. No one looked twice at them as they came down of the roof since Barton had a camera in his hands

They walked through the street briskly, headed back to the small hotel which catered to film crews and the cheaper kinds of tourists. Aaron stopped at a street vendor, intending to buy dinner, when the first bullet hit. The street was full of cars and people calling to each other as they headed home to sleep, so the sound didn’t register correctly at first. Aaron spun towards it, but didn’t know why until his eyes landed on the hole in the brick wall nearby. The second bullet clipped his arm as he threw himself onto Barton.

The other soldier caught Aaron, rolling them both into the cover of a wall. Aaron made sure to end up on top of the heap of limbs, shielding his handler with his body. Not that it would do much good based on the size of the hole in the bricks. That was a fifty caliber round. It’d go right through Aaron. The best Barton could hope for is the shooter would hit something non-vital since Aaron was covering too much of him for the shooter to be picky about the sniper’s triangle.

“Can you see the fuckface shooting us?” Barton asked, almost conversationally. Aaron, scanning the vantage points around them, shook his head. “Well, fuck. We’re going to have to run. We’ll dump the gear as soon as we can. Do you have your backup on you?”

Aaron pulled out the Hi-Pont compact pistol he kept holstered at the small of his back. It was small enough to sit comfortably on Aaron’s belt but still had an eight round clip. Aaron was a fan of more bullets, less easily concealed than the vice versa. Barton pulled out his own back up, a six round compact Colt and nodded, relaxed.

These days, Aaron kept what he was to himself, pulling his punches and stepping heavily. Now, he just moved, using brute strength to move Barton with him like he’d once done with Marta. Barton had seventy pounds on Aaron’s ex-wife, but it didn’t matter. Aaron ran, and Barton hung on for dear life.

The bags of gear ended up in a culvert that stunk of sewage. The detour to dump the bags got them shot at again. The bullet struck the corner of the building in front of Aaron’s face as he reeled back. He dodged having his head blown off, but the blow back caught the right side of his face. He yelped as he went blind on the right side.

“How bad?” Barton snarled, pulling them into a doorway to temporarily take shelter. “Fuck, there’s a lot of blood, Shearing, how bad?” His hands cupped Aaron’s face carefully.

Aaron huffed out, “I can’t see out of my right eye, but I think it’s just the blood.” He reached up to wipe it away. Barton stopped him.

“C’nest pas bon, fauconnet. Don’t touch.” Barton caught Aaron’s hand and squeezed. “Let’s go. Through here. We’ll cut through the buildings and lose the bastard.”

The side of Aaron’s face alternated by itching and burning. Aaron kept his hands away though, closing his right eye despite the sharp stab of pain. He let Barton take the lead through the smoky kitchen of a restaurant. They came out the other side. There were no more bullets. Instead a man in a protective face mask and black fatigues was waiting for them.

“Shit,” Barton hissed, shoving Aaron back behind him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Barney wasn’t sure why the Winter Soldier was shooting them or what Hydra’s favorite asset was waiting for. The Soldier just stood there, watching. Barney wondered if the asset even recognized him. “Barney, qu’est-ce qui se passé?” Shearing demanded. “Qui est ce connard?"

“Un emmerdemen,” Barney replied tightly. “Pouvez-tu battre?”

“Oui, frangin,” Shearing murmured, slowly bringing his pistol to bear on the Soldier. Both men fired on the Soldier, three shots from Shearing, two from Barney. One of Aaron’s shots clipped the shoulder, another smacked into the Soldier’s body armor, spinning the Soldier sideways. Both of Barney’s shots hit the Soldier’s chest plate. While the Soldier was regaining his balance, they ran again, back into the restaurant.

Shearing headed up. Barney followed. They hit the roof at a stumbling run that didn’t slow as they approached the edge. Shearing was going to jump. With a steadying breath, Barney followed him. He wouldn’t have stuck the landing if Shearing hadn’t grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him the last few inches from the edge.

“That’s not going to slow him down,” Barney warned Shearing.

Shearing grimaced. “Fuck. I’m kind of short on ideas right now, Barton. You’re slow. We can’t outrun him. And I don’t think we’d win if we made a stand.”

Barney snorted. He wasn’t sure if Shearing could outrun the Soldier even without Barney’s dead weight to haul along. Though if anyone could, that fucking cat who claimed to be a sniper would be the one to slip away into the night, the only target HYDRA’s deadliest assassin couldn’t defeat. The jump onto the next roof was easier. They kept moving forward a jog over the buildings.

Shearing slammed Barney behind the cover of an AC unit as a bullet whined overhead. Barney groaned. They were dead, and he had no idea why. Shearing stupidly glanced around the corner of the metal box to locate the Soldier. He jerked back, face nearly ripped off by another shot. “I’ve got an idea,” he said quietly. The wry confidence was so much like Clint that Barney felt his chest tighten. It only got worse as Shearing added, “Avez-tu confiance en moi, frangin?”

“Oui, fauconnet,” Barney forced out roughly. “T'allez me ramener chez pour Jaques.”

“Pour Jacques,” Shearing agreed. “We need to run.”

Barney groaned but followed as Shearing darted to the edge of the building and jumped off. Shearing had chosen well, because there was a lower roof just ten feet below. They were down in the alley running between two buildings as the Soldier appeared over the wall of the higher roof. Shearing darted down another alley, taking them out of the Soldier’s line of sight. There was still no sign of a plan.

Barney followed Shearing around the corner and walked right into Shearing’s leg lock and hard shove back. “Desole,” Shearing whispered as Barney crumpled to the ground with a snarl of pain. Barney’s knee was twisted. He couldn’t run. He was going to have trouble standing up in time to face the Soldier’s bullet instead of dying in a pile of misery on the ground. Shearing pressed his gun into Barney’s hand, “Shoot at him. Not at me.”

It was tempting to shoot the slippery little fucker in the back as Shearing darted down the alley then scrambled back on the roof, but the Soldier was bearing down. And Barney didn’t intend to die without doing some damage first.

He emptied Shearing’s gun to prevent the Soldier from just shooting Barney from the roofline. All but two of the shots in his pistol went to holding the soldier off. Then Barney played dead. Once the Soldier was close, Barney would try one last time for a headshot. If that failed, he still had the last bullet for himself. He wouldn’t give the HYDRA the satisfaction, and he wouldn’t be taken alive. Shearing was in the wind.

The Soldier rounded the corner, cocking a pistol. Barney kept still. A hundred feet. Eighty feet. Fifty feet. Twenty feet.

Clint, Barney’s little brother, came flying off the roof and slammed into the Soldier’s back. The little bastard even had an arrow in his hand, stabbing it into the Soldier’s throat. Shearing came up quickly, splattered in the Soldier’s blood as well as his own. He barely dodged the hand that grabbed for him, kicking it away with a metallic thunk. “Barney?” Shearing asked cautiously. It was a knife sticking out of the Soldier’s cracked neck armor, not an arrow. “Does he have friends?”

“Yes,” Barney choked out as he reprocessed what he’d just seen. Not a ghost, not his little brother protecting him again. There was no way Shearing could have done that though, circling around the Soldier for a sneak attack. No human could startle this particular HYDRA asset. But Shearing had done the impossible and saved Barney’s life. “We need to go. Help me up. We need to get to the airport.”

The Boss wouldn’t have made it on a plane yet, and the plane was technically SHIELD property anyways. If it had been anyone else, Barney would have waited to take a commercial flight the next day. But Barney was feeling the sudden urge for a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the amazing Julorean.
> 
> A note on Aaron's attempted murder of the Winter Soldier, since the Soldier's mask covers his neck, the damage isn't as bad as it could be. Aaron's blitz attack wasn't necessarily meant to kill, just do enough damage to stop the Soldier from following him and Barney.
> 
> Though it's not relevant for pretty much any part of the story, the man Aaron just killed is Kenjiro Fujikawa. Rumiko Fujikawa is too busy running her father's company to ever have a relationship with Tony Stark.


End file.
